- The adaptive refresh rate (ARR) feature in Android 15 enables the display refresh rate to adapt to the frame rate of content.
- The ARR feature reduces power consumption and jank as it lets devices operate at lower refresh rates without the need for mode switching.
- While previous versions of Android supported multiple refresh rates, they did so by switching between discrete display modes.
It’s not just the best Android phones that have fast displays these days. Most mid-range and flagship Android phones have a display with a refresh rate above 60Hz, and that’s even true for many budget phones as well. However, most of these phones only refresh at a few fixed rates like 60Hz, 90Hz, or 120Hz, as their displays don’t support variable refresh rate (VRR) technology. Some phones do have displays capable of VRR, but it turns out that Android itself hasn’t had true VRR support — at least not until now.
According to Google, Android 15 is the first version of Android that supports adaptive refresh rate (ARR), which is synonymous with variable refresh rate. Before Android 15, the operating system supported multiple refresh rates via refresh rate switching. Basically, the operating system would tell the display to switch between various display modes it supported such as 1080p@60Hz and 1080p@90Hz. It would try to do this intelligently, of course, by tracking what kind of view is displayed, but it was never truly adaptive. With the introduction of adaptive refresh rate in Android 15, though, the refresh rate can not only adapt to the content frame rate but also change the refresh rate within one display mode.