We asked, you told us: You clearly prefer 60Hz OLED over high refresh rate LCD

OLED vs LCD has been a battle for years now, with both screen technologies possessing their strengths and weaknesses. However, OLED has become the go-to screen tech for flagship phones and some mid-range phones, while LCD screens are usually found on budget and mid-tier phones.

We’ve also seen high refresh rate screens in the last few years, offering smoother animations and performance in system menus, supported games, and more. So that got us wondering whether people would choose an OLED screen at a standard refresh rate (60Hz) or a high refresh rate LCD screen.

Do you prefer 60Hz OLED or high refresh rate LCD?

Results

A total of 3,633 votes were cast on our website as of writing, with 72.5% giving the nod to 60Hz OLED screens compared to 27.5% who chose high refresh rate LCD screens.

We saw a very similar breakdown when we posted this poll on Twitter. A total of 5,062 votes were cast on Twitter, with 72.9% choosing 60Hz OLED panels and 27.1% picking high refresh rate LCD tech.

In other words, the winner by a landslide is clearly 60Hz OLED, with readers feeling that the benefit of a high refresh rate doesn’t outweigh the benefit of a standard OLED panel. This poll is particularly pertinent in recent months, as we’ve seen the realme 7 offer a high refresh rate LCD while the realme 7 Pro delivers a 60Hz OLED panel. We’ve also seen Xiaomi recently launch the Mi 10T series, packing high refresh rate LCD panels.

You can read more about the differences between OLED and LCD at the previous link. Nevertheless, OLED screens generally offer better power consumption, deeper blacks, and can get very bright. Meanwhile, LCD panels are cheaper to produce and aren’t prone to burn-in as we see over time with some OLED panels.

Your comments

• Shizuma: While I do in general prefer high refresh rates on computers for gaming I don’t see a ton of benefit on phones since I don’t game on my phone as honestly mobile games are terrible compared to console/PC games and high refresh rate kills battery life, so in that case I would prefer OLED for a phone over high refresh rate, especially for the ability to have always on displays.
• 2much2soon: I put a note 9 vs note20ultra to the test at school and separately using it no one noticed a difference between 60hz and 120hz… Zero and that was close to 20 people. Putting them side by side 4 people out of 10 thought there was something different (only when scrolling down long websites), 2 of this 4 thought it was due to a faster “cpu” . Didn’t play games or movies.. Just android and apps.
• Zero: 90Hz is cool and all but it’s the AMOLED display that suits me with dark mode being very suitable with AMOLEDs
• EspHack: the thing is, OLED is inherently “smoother” looking than LCD, just for reference, my 60hz OLED looks about as smooth as my 90hz surface go, LCD is just riddled with artifacts and issues not present on OLED, the only downside to OLED is potential burn in and often lower brightness. So yeah, higher refresh rate LCD is in a lot of ways just compensating for its deficiencies compared to lower refresh OLED, a hard choice even then because going back down in hz is annoying but going back to grey blacks and spotlight halos and blur and worse than perfect response times and a million other visual annoyances is just too much for me
• Stefan M.: High Refresh is interesting only for a few hours once you get it for a first time, after that you switch it back to 60 to save battery. Also, 90% of the content is (at the best) in 60 fps so you really no need more than 60 hz panel. OLED is great 100% of the time and saves battery. No room for discussion here :)
• Leander Berg: I’d go with 30 fps lcd if the phone was at a decent price with long term support. Honestly everyone falls for the stupid tactics of companies.
  The cheapest iphone will have years of software support that not even Android phone 3x the price can match. Why are we talking about what the brands want us to take about, instead of discussing the far greater issue with today’s devices? I’m just tried of this spec talk when all we need is easy serviceability and long term support.
• InfDaMarvel: I’ll never go back to LCD. Even the best LCD screens don’t not compare to OLED.

Thanks for voting in this poll and for leaving all those comments! We really appreciate it. What do you make of this question and the results? Let us know below!