Skip iPhone 13? All iPhone 14 models will reportedly feature 120Hz displays
Apple may be behind rivals like Samsung, OnePlus and Google when it comes to adopting fast-refreshing displays for its smartphones. But a new report claims that’s going to change, as all future iPhones will offer adaptive refresh rates — and not just the iPhone Pro models.
The catch? That apparently won’t be happening until next year’s iPhone 14. If you want an adaptive display on your next iPhone before then, your choice will be likely be limited to the iPhone 13 Pro or iPhone 13 Pro Max.
That’s the conclusion MacRumors reaches after the latest news out of Apple’s supply chain. The theory draws on a report from The Elec, which looks at LG’s efforts to ready its display-making business for Apple’s future phones.
The report gets a little bit into the finer details of low-temperature polycrystalline oxide (LTPO) display manufacturing, but the long and short of it is that LG is getting the pieces in places to make the LTPO screens that can adjust their refresh rate dynamically to reflect what you’re using your phone for.
By getting in a position to make LTPO screens, LG would be able to join Samsung in supplying Apple with the dynamically adjusting OLED panels. Samsung will reportedly make LTPO screens for this year’s iPhone 13, but only enough to equip the Pro models with the new feature. A second supplier coming online in 2022 would allow Apple to extend that feature to its more affordable handsets.
Of course, it’s not solely a matter of supplies. Adding dynamic refresh rates to the displays of its iPhone 13 Pro models would allow Apple to differentiate the two phones from its cheaper handsets. That, in turn, might encourage shoppers to pay up for the iPhone 13 Pro over the standard iPhone 13.
