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Not too long ago, iPhones didn't offer high refresh rate displays. Apple only switched to 120Hz screens with the iPhone 13 Pro in 2021, and only in 2025 brought its "ProMotion" tech to the base iPhone 17.
That said, if you've owned an iPhone for a while, you've probably noticed that not all animations feel consistently smooth. There are still quite a few places where the experience can feel a little choppy.
Safari on iPhone doesn't use 120Hz refresh rate by default
Even though Apple added 120Hz support to the iPhone years ago, Safari still renders most webpages at 60fps by default. This can make things feel jittery, especially when you're scrolling through text-heavy websites (like this one).
If you want, you can actually verify your iPhone's refresh rate while using Safari by visiting this refresh rate test page and checking the live frame rate and refresh rate sections. However, if you are using your iPhone out of the box without changing any settings, Safari is limited to 60Hz.
By default, at 60Hz, your iPhone refreshes the display every 16.7 milliseconds. At 120Hz, it refreshes every 8.3 milliseconds, meaning the screen updates twice as fast. The result is smoother scrolling and a noticeably more fluid browsing experience.
Thankfully, you can force Safari to use the full 120Hz refresh rate of your iPhone's display. Once enabled, scrolling through webpages feels smoother almost immediately. Here's how you can turn it on on your iPhone.
How to enable smoother 120Hz browsing in Safari on iPhone
Enabling 120Hz in Safari on an iPhone requires a device with a ProMotion display. If you own an iPhone Pro model from the iPhone 13 Pro or later, or any model from the new iPhone 17 lineup, you are good to go. On other iPhones, you will have to stick with 60 Hz.
Even if your phone supports it, you still need to enable the setting by digging through a few deeper menus. Here's how:
1. Open the Settings app and go to Safari settings
Weirdly enough, enabling 120Hz Safari browsing on an iPhone doesn't require opening the Safari app itself. Instead, the option is buried deep inside Safari settings.
To begin, open the Settings app on your iPhone. Scroll all the way down and tap Apps. From here, scroll until you find Safari and tap on it to open Safari's settings.
2. Go to Safari's Feature Flags
Inside Safari settings, scroll down to the bottom and tap Advanced.
3. Access the Feature Flags menu
In the Advanced menu, scroll down again and open Feature Flags.
4. Enable 120Hz Safari browsing
Feature Flags control several hidden Safari behaviors, including how webpages are rendered. To force Safari to use 120Hz, you need to stop it from preferring 60fps rendering.
In the Feature Flags section, scroll until you find Prefer Page Rendering Updates near 60fps and toggle it off.
What this does is prevent the iPhone from forcing Safari to render pages at 60fps. If your iPhone supports 120Hz, Safari will now try to render pages at the higher refresh rate instead.
5. Relaunch Safari on your iPhone
After disabling the toggle, fully close Safari using the App Switcher and then relaunch it.
Once Safari is reopened, webpages should now render at the full 120Hz refresh rate. You can verify this by visiting the same refresh rate test website that we used above and checking the live readout. When this feature is enabled, text-heavy websites, in particular, should feel noticeably smoother.
That said, if you spend a lot of time in Safari, keep in mind that forcing 120Hz can have a small impact on battery life. If needed, you can always turn the feature back off or rely on other battery-saving tips to balance things out.
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