120Hz IPS LCD vs 60Hz AMOLED!

Which is better? IPS LCD display with the higher refresh rate or AMOLED display with lower refresh rate?

Nowadays this question comes in everyone’s mind before buying a new smartphone, because many companies are providing higher refresh rates LCD panels in budget phones instead of AMOLED due to AMOLED displays being costlier and specially the ones with higher refresh rates cost even more. That’s why AMOLED in budget is not seen often.

The cost of the display panels can be compared as :

• Cost of a 60Hz IPS LCD Panel < Cost of a 60Hz AMOLED Panel
• Cost of 120Hz IPS Panel << Cost of a 90Hz AMOLED Panel
• Cost of 120Hz IPS Panel <<< Cost of a 120hz AMOLED Panel

Now keeping all the pricing aside let’s compare 120Hz IPS LCD with a normal 60Hz AMOLED.

I would be comparing these 2 displays with my personal experience of using Realme X3 Superzoom which has a 120Hz IPS LCD display and Redmi K20 PRO which is equipped with a 60Hz AMOLED.
Let’s do a topic wise comparison:

• Refresh Rate
A higher refresh rate display makes everything smoother and faster, whether it is switching between in the apps or scrolling through the UI. You might not be able to notice a difference straight after switching to 120hz from 60hz, but after using 120Hz for sometime there’s no going back.
So this point goes to IPS.

• Watching videos or images
No matter how much top quality IPS LCD display is used, when it comes to bing watching or even viewing pictures AMOLED is always a notch above IPS due to the deeper blacks and higher contrast present in Amoled displays. AMOLED Always tend to have a bit saturated colors (obviously which can be adjusted in display settings), but due to this nature content looks more pleasing to the human eye.
AMOLED takes this point.

• Viewing angles
Viewing angles mean that how much the colors drift from the original when looked from sideways.
Lately viewing angles of high quality amoled displays have started being better but still IPS ones have better off axis viewing angles.
This point to IPS.

• Battery consumption
In case of AMOLED each pixel has a individual LED i.e. if there’s some content of black color on the screen then the pixels representing black color will be switched off and the remaining pixels will keep on running. While in case of LCD all the pixels are lighten by a backlight, so the individual pixels can’t be turned off resulting in more battery consumption.
In 120Hz refresh the screen has to refreshed twice as fast as in case of a 60Hz resulting in higher battery drain.
So, 60Hz Amoled consumes less battery.

• Dark mode
Dark mode is something which is very common now a days and almost everyone uses it some time or other.
With deeper blacks and individual pixels turning off DARK mode on AMOLED displays is way better than one on IPS.

• Gaming
If the processor is capable and the game supports higher refresh rate then obviously gaming at 120Hz will be a pleasure. While gaming all that matters is smoothness which is provided by higher refresh rate, it doesn’t matter whether it’s AMOLED or LCD.

•Brightness
By default IPS displays are brighter than AMOLED ones , but now a days Samsung’s super AMOLED can go super bright. So this parameter depends on the quality of display used by the smartphone manufacturer .

Here are few samples comparing these 2 panels.

CONCLUSION

For gaming, viewing angles, smoothness throughout the UI 120Hz is ahead and for content watching, using dark mode and saving the battery by in the dark mode a 60Hz AMOLED is better.

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