Refresh Rate vs Response Time: Which Actually Affects What You See (iPad Pro 13 (M4))
Refresh Rate vs Response Time: Which Actually Affects What You See explained, with the iPad Pro 13 (M4)'s own measured figures as the worked example: refresh rate is how often a panel redraws; respons...
Aisha Bello
The gist of it
iPad Pro 13 (M4), rAM 16GB — Refresh Rate vs Response Time: Which Actually Affects What You See. Measured on hardware rather than argued from theory, on a device we rate for sustained performance that beats most laptops in this price bracket.
Refresh rate is how often a panel redraws; response time is how quickly a pixel changes. A high refresh rate with slow pixels still looks smeared.
Why this matters: Marketing leads with refresh rate because it is a bigger number, but response time is what causes visible ghosting.
How it actually works
A 120Hz panel presents a new frame every 8.3ms. If a pixel takes 20ms to complete its transition, it is still changing when the next two frames arrive, which the eye reads as a trail behind moving objects. OLED transitions are effectively instant, which is why a 60Hz OLED can look cleaner in motion than a slow 144Hz LCD.
In daily use
Take the iPad Pro 13 (M4) as a worked example. It held 94 percent of peak performance across a thirty-minute export. That is the difference this makes once you stop reading specifications and start using the thing.
| Specification | iPad Pro 13 (M4) |
|---|---|
| Display | 13in tandem OLED, 120Hz |
| Chip | M4 |
| RAM | 16GB |
| Storage | 512GB |
| Weight | 579g |
| Battery | 38.99Wh |
| Screen-on time | 9h 20m |
The same concept across four devices
One worked example is an anecdote. Here is how the figure that drives this behaviour actually varies across the hardware we have measured in this category — same test, same conditions, so the spread is real rather than an artefact of who reviewed what.
| Model | Display | Price | Our score |
|---|---|---|---|
| iPad Pro 13 (M4) | 13in tandem OLED, 120Hz | £1299 | 5 / 5 |
| iPad Air 11 (M2) | 11in IPS, 60Hz | £599 | 4 / 5 |
| Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra | 14.6in AMOLED, 120Hz | £1199 | 4 / 5 |
| Galaxy Tab S9 FE | 10.9in IPS, 90Hz | £449 | 3 / 5 |
Where the line sits
It helps to have a number in mind before you start comparing. Across the tablets we have measured, the useful thresholds are the ones where a difference stops being visible: below them you notice, above them you are paying for a specification rather than an experience. The iPad Pro 13 (M4) reports 13in tandem OLED, 120Hz for display, which sits comfortably on the right side of that line, and M4 for chip. Treat anything materially below those as a real compromise and anything materially above as a number you are unlikely to feel.
Myths worth dropping
- A higher refresh rate always looks smoother regardless of panel type
- Response time only matters for gaming
- The advertised response time is measured the same way by every manufacturer
Checking it yourself
- Reproduce the conditions rather than trusting a one-off reading — run the same task three times and take the average.
- Note the figure your device reports and the figure it actually achieves; on the iPad Pro 13 (M4) those diverge under sustained load.
- Change one variable at a time. Brightness, background sync and ambient temperature all move this number independently.
- Compare against the manufacturer’s stated figure and treat any gap as the cost of real-world conditions, not as a fault.
- Repeat after a firmware update — this is one of the numbers that moves without an announcement.
Where it shows up on a spec sheet
On a tablet listing this usually appears as the display line — the iPad Pro 13 (M4) quotes 13in tandem OLED, 120Hz. That figure is necessary but not sufficient: the chip entry (M4) constrains it in practice, and the two are almost never presented together. When you see one quoted without the other, assume the omitted one is the weaker of the pair.
Putting it to work
For motion clarity, weight panel technology and response time at least as heavily as the refresh number.
A fast panel with slow pixels is still a slow panel.
Behind this piece
Every product covered here was bought at retail and lived with for at least a fortnight before a word was written. Battery figures come from a scripted day rather than a manufacturer estimate, and sustained performance is measured warm — after half an hour of load — because that is the state a device spends most of its life in.
Where a firmware update changes a result, the piece is re-tested and the change noted rather than quietly corrected. No review unit arrives with conditions attached, and no score is agreed in advance with anybody.
Where to go next
If you are weighing this against the rest of the tablets we have covered, the category archive lists every review in date order. The closest comparisons we have published are Sensor Size Explained, and Why It Beats Megapixels (Fire Max 11) and Sensor Size Explained, and Why It Beats Megapixels (Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra).
For the reference material behind these figures, the specification pages carry the measured numbers, and the common questions collect what people ask once something is in daily use.
