Your iPhone Pro should run at 120Hz, but scrolling looks like 60. ProMotion throttles itself on purpose, and it’s almost always a setting or a limit, not a broken screen. Here’s what holds it back and how to confirm the real rate.
Which iPhones have ProMotion
ProMotion is Apple’s name for a 120Hz adaptive display. It arrived with iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max, and every Pro and Pro Max model since has it. iPhone 17 and iPhone Air brought it outside the Pro line. Older standard, Plus, and mini models are fixed at 60Hz, as is every e model, and no setting changes that. Check your model’s spec if you’re unsure.
The setting that caps it: Limit Frame Rate
The most common cause is one toggle. Open Settings, then Accessibility, then Motion, and find Limit Frame Rate. When it’s on, your Pro is locked to 60Hz no matter what. People turn it on by accident or inherit it from a restored backup. Switch it off and 120Hz comes back.
Low Power Mode drops you to 60
Low Power Mode caps the display at 60Hz to save battery. Open Settings, then Battery, and switch it off. iOS also turns Low Power Mode on by itself at 20 percent, so a long day can quietly drop your refresh rate by the evening.
Heat and a low battery throttle it too
Run a heavy game like Genshin Impact for half an hour, or export a long 4K clip in Photos, and the phone heats up. iOS lowers the refresh rate to manage the temperature. A nearly empty battery does the same. Both are protective and temporary, and the rate returns once the phone cools or charges.
Apps choose their own rate
A third-party app runs above 60Hz only if its developer opted in. Many apps and games cap themselves at 60 by default. One app stuck at 60 while system UI scrolls at 120 is the app’s own limit, not your display. Scroll through Settings or swipe across the Home Screen to judge the display itself.
120Hz gone after a screen repair
If ProMotion disappeared the day your screen was replaced, suspect the panel before any setting. Most aftermarket screens for the iPhone Pro are fixed at 60Hz, and no calibration or iOS update adds a refresh rate the hardware doesn’t have. Some newer third-party panels claim 120Hz. If that’s what you got, the phone still tags it as an unknown part, and the 120Hz is only the seller’s claim, which is often overstated.
A genuine Apple display works differently. It keeps 120Hz even if the repair hasn’t finished yet. The post-repair calibration restores Face ID and display pairing, not refresh rate. Apple runs it through Repair Assistant on iOS 18, and shops use System Configuration. So when a repair shop says the screen just needs calibration and scrolling still looks like 60, the panel isn’t a ProMotion panel.
Find out what you have in Settings, General, About, Parts and Service History (iOS 15.2 and later). Genuine next to Display means a real Apple part, fitted and calibrated the way Apple requires. Unknown Part means a third-party screen, or a part the phone can’t verify. Finish Repair means a genuine display still waiting for Repair Assistant. Then run the phone refresh rate test, but switch off the Safari flag from the final section first. While it’s on, web pages stay near 60 fps on any iPhone. Buying a Pro secondhand? The used phone checklist walks you through screen checks before you buy.
A still screen at a low rate is normal
ProMotion is adaptive. It scales down to as low as 1Hz on recent models and back up to 120Hz based on what’s on screen, so a static page sitting at a low rate is the feature working, not failing. You only need 120 when something moves.
How to confirm your real refresh rate
iOS has no built-in 120Hz readout, so judging it by feel is unreliable. A browser test works, but only after one change. Safari paints web pages near 60 fps by default, and every other iPhone browser runs on the same WebKit engine. Left alone, a healthy ProMotion iPhone reads about 60 in any browser test.
In Settings, go to Apps, Safari, Advanced, Feature Flags and turn off Prefer Page Rendering Updates near 60fps. Quit Safari and open it again, then run our phone refresh rate test. A reading close to 120 means ProMotion is working. Still 60 with Limit Frame Rate and Low Power Mode off? Restart the phone, and if nothing changes, contact Apple Support.