Thin and Light (MacBook-esque) with 120Hz screen (preferably matte)

[saladcrack]

Basically I've got a 2018 Razer Blade 15 that has a 144hz screen which is great. It also weighs a bit more than I'd like and I don't really game on it much anymore so I'd like to downsize to a 13-14" thin and light but retain the refresh rate. Now the newer MacBook Pros have 120hz screens which seems nice but I'm unsure how I'd do with an Apple computer, love the phones but I'm a Windows guy at heart.

 

My question is, are there any realistic options for an ultrabook type laptop that has a high refresh screen?

 

Essentially if the Razer Book had a 120hz matte screen I'd buy it in a heartbeat. I'd also consider a MacBook Air if it had a 120hz screen.

[Bombastinator]

Surface pro 8 apparently does it. I dunno about earlier ones. 
https://www.windowscentral.com/latest-intel-display-drivers-enable-dynamic-refresh-surface-pro-8-laptop-studio

[Kilrah]

Some Asus Zenbooks have 90/120Hz OLED panels.

[E-waste]

I have doubts that anyone can actually notice 120Hz vs 60Hz.  16.67 ms updates vs 8.33 ms updates on a screen.  Have you run A / B tests with someone else changing the settings?  I bet you cannot reliable 9/10 tell the difference.  What are your thoughts on this?

 

I can barely tell the difference between 30 and 60Hz.  There is a small difference, but it doesn't in any way take away the enjoyment of watching the screen.  Rocket League allows changing the framerate, so I'm going to test with that.

[Bombastinator]

19 hours ago, E-waste said:

I have doubts that anyone can actually notice 120Hz vs 60Hz.  16.67 ms updates vs 8.33 ms updates on a screen.  Have you run A / B tests with someone else changing the settings?  I bet you cannot reliable 9/10 tell the difference.  What are your thoughts on this?

 

I can barely tell the difference between 30 and 60Hz.  There is a small difference, but it doesn't in any way take away the enjoyment of watching the screen.  Rocket League allows changing the framerate, so I'm going to test with that.

The 24hz thing.  Below 24hz you get “slide show” things don’t even look like they move. The faster the on screen motion the more it matters. Motion blur helps a lot.  The problem though is it makes things blurry all the time.  You must be talking about static type.  With static type 90hz only looks a bit more solid.  You don’t notice a real difference until you e been looking at the screen for a couple hours and there less damage to your eyes.  When it come to moving 3d shapes though Even I can.  I can’t notice the difference between 120&144, but below the eye speed break point it is easy. There are two known break points: 24hz and 90hz. There may be a third around 1000hz. Not sure what it does.  I’ve never even seen it.  Getting past the second one is needed for fast motion.  Especially if you don’t want to use motion blur.   Watch when people check refresh rate; they’ll get into some 3d modeled environment and spin quickly. At 60 hz if I whip around as fast as I can I get somewhere between 8 and 12 ‘edges’. It’s not realistic.  Get above 90 and that becomes really difficult.  Human brains process visual information pretty quick.  People who are trained or have talent like pro batters have unusually good speed that way.  They may even go over 144.  I’m old with shitty eyes so my number is more like 100hz but if you want to compare 30 vs 60, 30 is barely playable for 3d games.  40 is considered usable, generally, and 60 is better than that.  Above 90 is a whole new gear though. 

Edited February 16, 2023 by Bombastinator

[Kilrah]

7 hours ago, E-waste said:

I have doubts that anyone can actually notice 120Hz vs 60Hz.  16.67 ms updates vs 8.33 ms updates on a screen.  Have you run A / B tests with someone else changing the settings?  I bet you cannot reliable 9/10 tell the difference.  What are your thoughts on this?

I can feel the difference between 60 and 75 on a monitor I have that supports both. And yes I've gotten "Hmm it must have reset itself to 60" a few times and it had.

Changes a lot from one person to the next so if you can't that doesn't mean others don't.

[Commodus]

On 2/11/2023 at 1:04 PM, saladcrack said:

Basically I've got a 2018 Razer Blade 15 that has a 144hz screen which is great. It also weighs a bit more than I'd like and I don't really game on it much anymore so I'd like to downsize to a 13-14" thin and light but retain the refresh rate. Now the newer MacBook Pros have 120hz screens which seems nice but I'm unsure how I'd do with an Apple computer, love the phones but I'm a Windows guy at heart.

 

My question is, are there any realistic options for an ultrabook type laptop that has a high refresh screen?

 

Essentially if the Razer Book had a 120hz matte screen I'd buy it in a heartbeat. I'd also consider a MacBook Air if it had a 120hz screen.

It's really just a question of the apps you want to run. You wouldn't want to get a MacBook Pro primarily with gaming in mind, but it's excellent for creative apps and general computing. You'd just have to be patient as you learn the ropes of macOS (the dock, the simpler approach to installing apps, and so forth). You might like the tighter integration with your iPhone, such as taking calls or texts from your Mac.

 

Some advice based on what I've seen: don't worry about getting more than the base M2 Pro CPU unless you really need extra power, and you don't need more than 16GB of RAM unless you know you'll use memory-intensive apps. But do consider getting more than the base 512GB of storage if you're eager for futureproofing or want the maximum storage speed.