I'm shopping for a gaming laptop. I play RPG/shooters like Fallout 4 and MMOs such as Guild Wars 2 and Black Desert Online.
I prefer high pixel density displays. In a 15.6-inch laptop screen, 1080p looks blurry to me. 4K resolution looks much better.
Here is the problem. Nearly all gaming laptops have 1080p screens. Very few are available with 4K screens, and those are expensive.
My understanding is this is due to the fact that today's 4K screens have a refresh rate of 60hz, and gamers prefer higher refresh rates. A 1080p/144hz screen is considered better for gaming than a 4K/60hz one.
My question: why is refresh rate considered important beyond 60hz? Can the human eye actually tell the difference between 60hz and 144hz?
Why it matters to me: I want to just buy a laptop with the kind of screen I like, but I'm worried that gamers know something I don't and there's a good reason to prioritize refresh rate, and I'll end up paying extra for the wrong laptop.
Best Answer
Let's start with the easy one.
Yes. It's one of these "you gotta see it for yourself" thing. 144hz looks crazy smooth. Even just moving the cursor around the screen is impressive at first.
Well in the context of games, assuming your PC is powerful enough, higher refresh rate means you can see more frames per seconds. If you have any experience with video games, you'll easily understand that higher FPS = smoother video, more precision and better responsiveness. Just keep in mind "maxing out" your 144hz display means your PC needs to be able to render 144 FPS. A game locked at 30FPS won't be much different on a 144hz display.
It's really just the same arguments as 60fps vs 30fps, except that in this case we're talking about the physical limit of the screen and not the virtual FPS your PC can compute. You could have a game running at 60FPs on your 144hz display, but you can have more.
144hz doesn't inherently improve the image quality. If 1080p looks blurry to you, 144hz won't help. A blurry still image is still blurry at 144hz. What do you want to use this laptop for? Casual games, netflix, browsing? Disregard 144hz and go for 4k. Fast-paced games where you want every advantages you can have?
Don't buy a laptopDo consider 144hz.