OnePlus could be pursuing a display spec that is faster than many computer gaming monitors. A fresh rumor suggests the company is investigating a smartphone screen with a 240Hz dynamic refresh rate, hinting at a move beyond the 165Hz upgrade we eXpect for its next flagship and picking up last year’s debate about just how fast your phone display should go.
The claim of ultra-high refresh with high resolution, which surfaced from OnePlus Club on X, would also indicate the brand wants to strike a balance here—rather than sacrificing sharpness just to score headline numbers. It’s a lofty goal, and it speaks to what is perhaps a broader shift in mobile display strategy as flagship makers fight for performance gains that can be seen and felt.
What the 240Hz OnePlus display rumor actually says
That screen, the tipster claims, is being targeted with a 240Hz variable refresh rate, which would no doubt scale down intelligently when static to save on battery.
The rumor doesn’t nail anything down on resolution, supplier, or timing. It positions 240Hz as a potential marketing differentiator and suggests OnePlus is exploring a solution that balances higher refresh with high resolution, rather than simply jumping from the 165Hz many expect next.
Context matters here. The high end of mainstream flagships from Samsung and Apple tops out at 120Hz, while gaming-centric phones like Asus or RedMagic have surpassed that with 144Hz and 165Hz. A real 240Hz phone would be enough to keep up with or outdo many of the most popular gaming monitors, which live around the 144–165Hz tier, though we’ve also seen some top-end desktop displays hit at least 360Hz and even come close to 500Hz.
Why 240Hz matters on a phone and where it helps most
On higher refresh rates, motion will appear cleaner and blur is lessened, meaning touch interactions will feel more immediate. That “glide” experience is apparent as you scroll through feeds and traverse the user interface. The advantage is even greater in fast-paced games where animation precision and input smoothness can matter. It’s the same logic competitive PC players use when they flock to high-Hz monitors.
There’s also a marketing angle. In a market where chipsets are becoming relatively similar to the point there’s little difference between rivals, and cameras eke out very small margins in image quality or processing time, you have something that stands out instantly in hand: display smoothness. DSCC has said that LTPO variable refresh is increasingly being adopted in premium tiers, where consumers can immediately see the distinction on a shelf.
The trade-offs: resolution, power, and heat at 240Hz
Driving more frames isn’t free. A display panel refreshing at 240Hz makes the display driver, memory interface, and GPU work harder, with panel power scaling up as frequency increases. And even with LTPO letting the screen slow to low Hz for static content, running at those peak speeds could be a meaningful battery hit and add extra heat—pain points that are already present on phones due to size restrictions.
It would be reasonable to expect the OnePlus 15 to marry 165Hz with a 1.5K resolution, which is probably what we’re saying. Fewer pixels mean lower bandwidth and GPU load, which makes higher refresh more feasible. The suspected endgame is a bit more complicated: keep the crisper QHD-class image but switch to 240Hz as desired, all without immediately nuking your battery from orbit. For that to happen, we will need more efficient panels, denser driver ICs, and smarter SoC-level scheduling of system-level wake-ups.
App and game support is still the big hurdle
But whether or not the hardware can reach 240Hz, the ecosystem must support it. Most Android apps top out at 60Hz, and while the list of supported titles is growing in the range of 90–120Hz (with a few extending to 144/165), mobile-friendly games going all the way up to 240Hz are not common today. Competitive shooter and racing games would have the most to gain from the increased frame rate, but developers would need to do significant work on rendering pipelines and input handling to deliver a 240fps output rather than relying on interpolation.
Touch sampling is also an integral factor that should not be confused with refresh rate. Many phones will boast 240Hz, 480Hz, or even 1,000Hz touch sampling for input responsiveness, but that doesn’t mean the display is drawing 240 frames each second. The OnePlus rumor specifically mentions display refresh.
How OnePlus could make a true 240Hz display happen
On the hardware front, a 240Hz OLED would presumably employ next‑gen LTPO backplanes and more efficient emitters to manage power use. Samsung Display and BOE, two major panel suppliers working to make high‑refresh‑rate displays for mobile (and XR) available well over 60Hz, are moving in that direction on their roadmaps. And precedent matters: Sharp shipped a smartphone display based on IGZO that ran at 240Hz in Japan, albeit with few other global partners joining the journey.
On the silicon side, Qualcomm’s recent Adreno GPUs already offer high refreshes at FHD and 1.5K; it’s sustaining that in real workloads that needs work. Expect aggressive use of variable refresh windows, per‑app frame caps, and techniques that could smooth video content without the GPU having to work for every frame. Partners, including Pixelworks, which provides display processors for motion and color, could also be involved.
What a 240Hz OnePlus display would mean for buyers
Give me a 240Hz phone for day‑to‑day use from OnePlus and I am going to notice, as will competitive gamers. The larger win would be getting to that speed without sacrificing resolution or battery life. Until more support from apps arrives, however, 240Hz will be a sometimes thrill and not an always‑on edge.
Like any leak, skepticism is a good thing to have ready. But the direction of travel is clear: the next generation of premium phones will be as much a matter of display engineering as raw chip power. If OnePlus nails the balance here, it could raise a new bar for how fast a phone does and doesn’t feel in your hand.
