Apple’s Vision Pro website is filled with incredible photos and fancy phrases to describe how revolutionary the headset is, but you won’t find Apple’s usual tech specs page. That’s likely because the device isn’t shipping for another 10 months or so, and things are probably going to change.
So there are a lot of small specifics we don’t know. For example, Apple describes the display as a “custom micro‑OLED display system [that] features 23 million pixels, delivering stunning resolution and colors,” but doesn’t mention ProMotion—Apple’s high-refresh technology that automatically adjusts the refresh rate up to 120Hz for ultra-smooth scrolling and responsiveness.
On a $3,499 Pro device, we naturally assumed ProMotion would be included, but that’s actually not the case. According to performance engineer Rikky Roy Koganti in the seminar “Optimize app power and performance for spatial computing,” Vision Pro’s refresh rate is lower than other Pro devices with ProMotion displays: “The compositor is always rendering. It supplies new rates to the display at a rate matching the display’s refresh rate. This helps provide a comfortable experience. This rate is usually 90 frames a second but can be higher.”
The higher frame rates Koganti refers to are for some 24fps videos that require 96Hz (24X4) for smooth viewing. Apple recommends using 24fps or 30fps videos for optimal performance when playing videos on Vision Pro.
A 90Hz display is the same as a Google Pixel 7a and significantly lower than other VR headsets, including the Meta Quest 3 (120Hz), PlayStation VR (120Hz), and Valve Index (144Hz). However, the Vision Pro’s displays are much higher quality than any of its competitors. And based on the early impressions, no one seems to notice that it has a lower refresh rate than the iPhone 14 Pro.
Author: Michael Simon, Executive Editor
Michael Simon has been covering Apple since the iPod was the iWalk. His obsession with technology goes back to his first PC—the IBM Thinkpad with the lift-up keyboard for swapping out the drive. He's still waiting for that to come back in style tbh.