With the launch of the Galaxy S20 series, Samsung brought a screen with a higher refresh rate for the first time. However, unlike its competitors, Samsung has opted for a 120Hz panel, which is undoubtedly better than 90Hz displays, but it does take a toll on battery life. On top of that, the Exynos 990 doesn’t even come close to the Snapdragon 865 when it comes to power efficiency, causing battery woes for most S20 devices sold worldwide. However, there is a hidden 96Hz screen refresh rate on Galaxy S20 devices that offer almost the same screen smoothness without squeezing the juice. So let’s go ahead and learn how to enable 96Hz Refresh Rate on Galaxy S20 Series without any lag.
Note: Screen Refresh rate should not be confused with Touch Sampling rate. Click here to learn the difference between the two technologies.
Enable 96Hz Refresh Rate on Galaxy S20, S20+, S20 Ultra
Before I continue, let me clarify that you don’t need root to enable this feature. All you have to do is run a few ADB commands and you’re done. Apart from that, the screen Galaxy S20 series supports 4 modes: 48Hz, 60Hz, 96Hz and 120Hz. So you can switch to whatever mode you want, but I highly recommend the 96Hz screen refresh rate to strike the fine balance between screen smoothness and battery life. Now having said all that, let’s move on to the steps.
1. First of all, Enable Developer Options On your Galaxy S20 series. To do this, open Settings and go to About phone -> Software Information. Here, tap “Build number” seven times to activate the menu.
2. Now, Developer Settings will appear in Settings just below the “About Phone” menu. open and Enable usb debugging”.
3. After doing this, connect your smartphone to your computer and install ADB. If you don’t know anything about ADB, follow our detailed tutorial on how to set up ADB on Windows, macOS, Linux and Chrome OS. Finally, run adb devices To check if your smartphone is properly connected to the computer.
4. Now that you have ADB installed, execute the following commands one by one To enable 96Hz Screen Refresh Rate on your Galaxy S20. Remember, the terminal will not output any output.
adb shell settings put system peak_refresh_rate 96.0 adb shell settings put system min_refresh_rate 96.0
5. for Check if you have successfully switched to 96Hz refresh rate, on testufo.com in a web browser. It will show you the current refresh rate, which should be around 96Hz.
6. Switch back to 60Hz or 120Hz Refresh rate, open Settings -> Display -> Motion smoothness -> select 60Hz or 120Hz. If system setting is not working, replace 96 with 120 or 60 in above ADB commands and execute them one by one. You will be back to the default screen refresh rate on your Galaxy S20.
Reduce Screen Refresh Rate to 96Hz and Save Battery on Galaxy S20 Series
So you can access the hidden 96Hz mode and activate it on your Galaxy S20. Honestly, I would love for Samsung to offer the 96Hz mode in the Settings menu along with 60Hz and 120Hz options. It would make a lot of sense: almost the same level of smoothness without affecting battery life. Anyway, you can go ahead and manually change the refresh rate to 96Hz. Anyway, that’s it for us. If you’re having any issues, comment below and let us know.
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