The Battle for Battery Life vs. Smoothness
Many flagship and mid-range Android phones today boast spectacular 120Hz or 144Hz displays. A higher refresh rate means the screen updates more frequently every second, resulting in buttery-smooth scrolling, incredibly responsive touch inputs, and a far more premium feel.
However, running a display at 120Hz constantly consumes a significant amount of battery power. To combat this, smartphone manufacturers use dynamic refresh rates. When you are scrolling through Twitter, the screen ramps up to 120Hz. When you stop scrolling to read a static image, the operating system aggressively drops the refresh rate down to 60Hz or even 10Hz to save power. Unfortunately, this dynamic switching is not always perfect, and you may notice stuttering when an app fails to trigger the higher refresh rate.
If you prefer maximum smoothness at all times and don’t care about the battery drain, you can dive into the hidden Android Developer Options and force the phone to stay at its peak refresh rate.
Step 1: Enable Developer Options
Before you can force the refresh rate, you must unlock the hidden Developer Options menu.
- Open the Settings app on your Android phone.
- Scroll to the very bottom and tap on About phone.
- Scroll down to find the Build number.
- Tap on the Build number seven times in rapid succession.
- Your phone will prompt you for your PIN or fingerprint. Once authenticated, a small toast notification will appear saying “You are now a developer!”
Step 2: Force Peak Refresh Rate
Now that the hidden menu is unlocked, you can access the system-level display toggle.
- Go back to the main Settings page.
- Tap on System (on some phones, you may need to tap “Additional Settings” instead).
- Scroll down and tap on the newly visible Developer options menu.
- Scroll roughly halfway down the page until you find the Debugging or Display section (the exact location varies slightly depending on your manufacturer, such as Samsung’s One UI versus Google’s Pixel UI).
- Locate the toggle named Force peak refresh rate.
- Flip the toggle to the ON position.
The Results
The moment you flip the switch, the Android operating system will completely disable its dynamic scaling algorithms. The display hardware is now locked at 120Hz (or whatever the maximum supported rate of your specific phone is) for every single application, including the home screen, static web pages, and games.
Warning: Forcing the display to render 120 frames per second at all times will noticeably impact your battery life. If you find your phone dying before the end of the day, simply return to the Developer Options menu and flip the toggle back off to restore the default dynamic behavior.