Higher resolution or higher refresh rate?

On a power-limited handheld, usually refresh — but only if the chip can feed it. A higher refresh rate looks smoother when the hardware pushes frames to match; a 120Hz panel fed 45 fps is mostly marketing. Higher resolution costs GPU power and battery to render natively, and on a small screen the sharpness gain past a point is hard to see. The honest priority order is a bright, well-paced panel with VRR over raw pixel count or an unfeedable refresh number. Match the screen to what the silicon actually sustains.