Figures as published (August 5, 2026). Prices written in the article text are our catalog's figures when it was written, and prices move — each phone's current price and its status (observed with a date, or an estimate) are on its page and in the “Phones mentioned” cards below, and any device or brand count above belongs to that date.
The figure on a spec sheet is the maximum refresh rate the panel can reach, not the rate it runs at all day. Of the 180 devices we list at 144Hz or above, the overwhelming majority of the strongest ones are gaming phones or close relatives of them — and that is no accident.
120 vs 165: where the difference actually lives
The jump from 60Hz to 120Hz is obvious the moment you scroll a list. The jump from 120Hz to 165Hz is far harder to notice in daily use — scrolling, typing and browsing all look roughly identical. The difference shows up in exactly one place: a game that supports high frame rates paired with a chip that can genuinely push it to 165 frames per second. Outside that case, you're paying for a spec your screen uses for a handful of minutes a day.
Who actually benefits
- OnePlus 15 — JOD 650 (up to 739), 6.78-inch LTPO AMOLED 1.5K at 165Hz, Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and a performance index of 98
- Asus ROG Phone 9 — JOD 649 (up to 759), 165Hz LTPO AMOLED 1.5K, Snapdragon 8 Elite and an index of 94
- OnePlus Ace 5 Ultra — JOD 339 (up to 409), 165Hz, Dimensity 9400+ and an index of 91
- Motorola Edge 40 Pro — JOD 249 (up to 299), 165Hz from 2023, an index of 82 and 125W charging
The brand split confirms the picture: Motorola has 25 devices in this category, Xiaomi 24, Asus 22 and Nubia 17 — the companies chasing 165Hz are mainly gaming-phone makers. And there's a trap worth noting: the Tecno Spark 40 costs JOD 78 and carries a 144Hz AMOLED FHD+ screen, but its chip is a Helio G81 Ultimate and its performance index is 20 out of 100. The panel can display 144 frames; the processor cannot generate them in a real game. The number exists on paper, the benefit does not.
The battery pays the bill
Every extra frame costs energy, and you can see that in how these phones are designed. The OnePlus 15 arrives with a 7,300 mAh battery and an LTPO panel that can drop the refresh rate when content is static, while the OnePlus Ace 5 Ultra pairs 6,000 mAh with 100W charging. By contrast, the Nothing Phone (3) at JOD 459 (up to 539) has a 165Hz OLED 1.5K screen but only a 5,150 mAh battery and 33W charging, and the Motorola Edge 40 Pro carries 4,600 mAh. Those are excellent phones, but their margin is much thinner if you leave the display pinned at its highest rate all day.
The practical advice: if you don't game, don't pay a premium to move from 120Hz to 165Hz — put the money into the chip or the battery instead. If you do game, look for both together: a high refresh rate and a performance index above 90, as in the OnePlus Ace 5 Ultra at JOD 339, ideally with an LTPO panel that lowers the rate on its own when you don't need it.
What this analysis is based on
The figures here are computed from the Phones JO catalog itself — specifications taken from manufacturers’ official announcements, and prices from dated observation runs of OpenSooq listings for new units. This is not rewritten from other sites, and we have not tested the phones ourselves. Our method in detail ›
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