OnePlus is starting to dribble out details for its next phones, and it’s starting with the feature you probably care about the most the screen. The company’s upcoming, Samsung-made 120Hz Fluid Display is faster than the 90Hz of the 7 series and thus better at handling motion, but that’s just supposedly the start. The AMOLED panel packs a slew of custom design choices that might help it stand out against the ROG Phone 2 and those precious few other 120Hz handsets on the market.
OnePlus also intends to use a custom MEMC (motion estimation / motion compensation) chip to insert extra frames into videos to bring them up to 120Hz. It wouldn’t be completely inaccurate to call it motion smoothing for video on smartphones, though again we’d have to see whether it causes a “soap opera effect” in person before we called that a bad idea. MEMC will be able to be toggled on and off in settings.
The OnePlus 8 won’t be the first phone to hit 120Hz. the ROG Phone 2 and Razer Phone 2 both did that last year. Nor will it be the only Android phone that has a higher-than-60Hz refresh rate to come out this year. Samsung’s Galaxy S series, for example, is expected to feature 120Hz refresh rates when announced on February 11th. The challenges facing all of those phones will include compensating for the higher battery cost of a high-refresh rate screen and convincing customers the extra cost it worth the improved smoothness.
OnePlus has promised to hold an event in Shenzhen, China today to show off more of this new screen technology. It seems as if companies announcing features of their phones before they announce their phones is just going to be the new normal now.
