Picture Quality

The INNOCN 32M2V features a 10-bit (8-bit + FRC) IPS panel from AU Optronics' M320QAN02 family, capable of displaying 16.7 million colors. The panel can, in fact, be pushed to display 10 bits of color per channel by using Frame Rate Control (FRC), a method of temporal dithering to create a perception of 1,024 individual shades of RGB color (1.07 billion colors in total). Unless you're a creative professional with an established end-to-end 10-bit color workflow, you shouldn't lose sleep over the 8-bit+FRC nature of this monitor.

The panel uses a quantum dot layer for improved color gamut. Bizarrely, it's not mentioned in the technical specifications or on the official website. Just a quick refresher: quantum dots are semiconductive nanocrystals measuring 2–10 nanometers, capable of producing pure red, green, and blue light. Their exact color is determined by the number of atoms within. When light is shone on a quantum dot, it absorbs the light and re-emits it at a specific wavelength or color. The wavelength of the light emitted by a quantum dot depends on the size and composition of the particle. By carefully controlling the size of the quantum dots and the material they are made of, it is possible to produce a specific range of colors, from deep reds to vibrant blues and greens. Quantum dots are applied to a sheet of film located between the backlight and panel/color filter.

Just as importantly, the INNOCN 32M2V is equipped with a Mini-LED FALD (Full Array Local Dimming) backlight system. It consists of 1,152 local dimming zones, which can be individually controlled to achieve deep blacks, very bright whites, and vivid colors in general. The key difference between Mini-LED backlight systems and traditional FALD backlight systems is the granularity. With as many as 1,152 controllable dimming zones on a 32-inch panel, the backlight of the INNOCN 32M2V can adjust to the content being displayed on a small part of the screen.

The local dimming feature of the INNOCN 32M2V is enabled by default, which isn't necessarily something you'd want when displaying standard dynamic range content, as you'll occasionally face issues like crushed shadows in high-contrast areas, visible blooming (especially on shades of gray) and inconsistent brightness – hardly ideal when surfing the web or editing photos. You can (and should) turn it off in the OSD (Game Settings > Localdimming). When the monitor is set to HDR mode and is receiving an HDR signal, the local dimming feature is on and cannot be deactivated, which is expected (and desired) behavior.

Having said that, the INNOCN 32M2V is fully equipped to display HDR content properly: it has a FALD backlight, a wide color gamut, and high peak brightness, with the specified HDR peak reaching up to 1,000 cd/m².

As for the available screen real estate, a 32-inch 4K monitor is fully usable with a modest 125% display scaling, which gives you a lot of room to work with. If your vision isn't perfect, you might want to consider scaling the UI to 150%. At that point, you're getting the same amount of screen real estate as you would with a 32-inch 1440p monitor set to 100% scaling. The picture sharpness is expectedly excellent; the INNOCN 32M2V uses a standard RGB subpixel structure and has a good pixel density of 138 PPI.

To test the picture quality of the INNOCN 32M2V, I've used a combination of the X-Rite i1Display Pro, DisplayCAL – a powerful software solution for display calibration and profiling, which is completely free to use, assuming you own a supported colorimeter – and Calman, the industry-standard display testing and calibrating software suite.

Picture Quality at Factory Settings

The picture quality of the INNOCN 32M2V at its factory defaults was tested after allowing it to warm up for about an hour. Although I usually start testing monitors with their default settings, this wasn't a viable option in the case of the INNOCN 32M2V. The thing is, the monitor is factory-adjusted to an absurdly low brightness level of only 5.45 cd/m², according to the colorimeter. There's even a warning label on it, because otherwise you might mistake it for being dead on arrival. The sticker boasts INNOCN's responsibility and eco-friendliness, but I have to admit I don't get the logic here. It's not like anyone will use the monitor with 5 cd/m² brightness, and, as far as I'm aware, a monitor doesn't use energy or emit anything when packed up in a box. With that in mind, this strikes me as a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. I'd prefer it if they simply set the monitor to a comfortable (usable!) brightness level and let users take it from there.

Either way, even if you can't see anything on the INNOCN 32M2V's screen, just keep pressing the Home button. After a couple of blind presses you'll activate the "Standard Mode" picture profile, which boosts the brightness to 290.5 cd/m² and allows you actually start using the monitor. I also deactivated the local dimming feature (Game Settings > Localdimming > Off). That raised the brightness to 306.4 cd/2, and these were my final "default settings," used for the initial batch of measurements.


At default settings, the INNOCN 32M2V has a high white point, measuring 7,536 K, stemming from the obvious blue channel imbalance. That impacts both the grayscale accuracy (average ΔE 4.2), as well as the overall tonality of the picture, which noticeably leans towards blue. The static contrast ratio is within expectations for an IPS panel, and the color accuracy, when measured within the sRGB color space, isn't particularly good, mostly because of obvious oversaturation happening in all three corners of the CIE diagram. Such is the fate of panels with a wide color gamut; if you want to use them for serious work, you need to calibrate them for the appropriate color space. The CIE diagram shows 99.8% coverage of the sRGB space (the actual sRGB gamut volume is a whopping 175.1%). The monitor also offers 97.9% DCI-P3 gamut coverage (124% DCI-P3 gamut volume) and 95.7% Adobe RGB gamut coverage (120.7% volume).


The INNOCN 32M2V offers a sRGB color profile (Professional > sRGB Mode). It locks you out of changing gamma, but you can, somewhat unexpectedly, change the color temperature to your liking, along with brightness and numerous other picture-related settings. The sRGB Mode isn't tuned ideally. While the color gamut does get clamped to the sRGB color space, removing the oversaturation of all three primary channels, and the grayscale and general color accuracy greatly improves in the process, the color temperature is still too high (7,052 K), and gamma tracking isn't very good either; notice the significant dip as we come close to full white. The measurements show the continuation of our troubles with the blue channel balance.


Similar color temperature deviation is present in the DCI-P3 Mode, too. The measurements above were made within the DCI-P3 space.

In an attempt to get the most out of the panel without doing an actual hardware calibration, you can play around with a couple of settings in the OSD. First and foremost, select a picture profile that gives you access to all settings, such as "Standard" (Professional > Standard Mode). Then you must do your best to tackle the color channel disbalance, which isn't as simple as it sounds on the 32M2V. Even though I was armed with a capable colorimeter and a powerful piece of software, I wasn't able to completely balance out the channels – regardless of the setting, one or two were always slightly out of place. I ended up going with the red channel set to 48, green to 50, and blue to 49. These changes can be accessed in the Professional > C.T settings > User C.T1 > On submenu. Finally, in order to lower the brightness to a more comfortable 250 cd/m² level, I had to lower the corresponding setting (Picture Settings > Brightness) to 41.

Let's compare the measurements before and after doing the OSD tweaks.



We see improvements in aspects such as the white color temperature, color accuracy, contrast, and grayscale accuracy. Overall, the picture of the INNOCN 32M2V looks vibrant and punchy even in SDR mode, which is a direct result of the panel's wide color gamut.


This is what the luminance and color uniformity of the INNOCN 32M2V look like when measured at 25 different patches across the panel. Please click on the image to see it in high resolution and examine the data in greater detail. The luminance uniformity on my sample of the INNOCN 32M2V is excellent, as is the contrast stability. The luminance doesn't deviate for more than 3% on any part of the panel, compared to its center, which is used as a reference point. The contrast deviation stays within 5.5%. The color uniformity somewhat deviates across the left edge of the screen, but not by a huge amount, and definitely not enough to be noticeable to the naked eye.

Picture Quality After Calibration

I calibrated the display by using the X-Rite i1Display Pro colorimeter and the DisplayCAL software solution. The initial profiling and calibration were done with the luminance target set to 250 cd/m², which presents a happy medium for a comfortable combined daytime and nighttime usage.

Here's what we get after calibrating the monitor.



Everything looks great after the calibration, except for the accuracy of a certain shade of blue, which has a surprisingly high ΔE of 5.56. At first, I thought it was a measurement error, but it kept showing up after several repeated measurements. Other aspects of the panel are close to perfect post-calibration, including gamma tracking, average color accuracy, and white color temperature. If you're looking to use the INNOCN 32M2V for color-critical work, regardless of your color space of choice, make sure to calibrate it first.

HDR Performance

Having a Mini-LED FALD backlight system with 1,152 individually dimmable zones, high peak brightness, and wide color gamut, the INNOCN 32M2V is fully capable of providing an excellent HDR performance. This is an obvious strong suit of this monitor and one of the main reasons it's likely to be a popular choice amongst gamers.

There are some annoyances to report in how the HDR and local dimming features behave. Firstly, the monitor doesn't switch to HDR mode automatically when you activate HDR in Windows. You have to activate its HDR profile manually, either by going to the OSD > Picture Settings > HDR menu and selecting the desired profile (HDR Standard, HDR Movie, HDR Design), or by assigning the HDR menu to a hotkey, which is a better option, as at least it saves you from having to go deep into the menus (you still have to select the exact profile, though). Then, after you're done playing your favorite HDR title, you again have to turn HDR off both in Windows and on the monitor itself. The monitor, however, doesn't go back to the exact state it was left in before HDR was activated. Namely, regardless of what you had the local dimming feature set to, it will always be off when switching back to SDR mode. While that's the preferred setting for SDR content, some users will undoubtedly want to leave it on at all times, leading to additional digging through the OSD whenever going from HDR to SDR modes. Furthermore, you'll also have to reactivate your modified settings, such as custom color temperature, because for some reason it will be set to "Natural" after going back from HDR to SDR mode.

Monitor manufacturers – INNOCN included – really have to do a better job at HDR signal detection and monitor mode switching. An average consumer shouldn't have to worry about local dimming being on or off, or even know what it is. A monitor should be set up in a way that it automatically adjusts itself for best performance depending on what the user is doing, and that's not the case with the INNOCN 32M2V.

Despite all that, if you're willing to put in the effort, you'll be rewarded with impressive HDR visuals in games with proper HDR implementation. Ori and the Will of the Wisps – one of my HDR favorites – looks spectacular on the INNOCN 32M2V, with vibrant, punchy colors, superb contrast, and deep blacks. I measured an HDR peak brightness of up to 1,210 cd/m² – higher than suggested by the panel's technical specifications. The entire experience is topped only by OLED monitors in terms of visual presentation when HDR is activated. The blooming isn't particularly pronounced, so I didn't find it distracting while gaming; that's one of the obvious benefits of a fairly high number of local dimming zones. In short, if high-quality HDR gaming is what you're after, and the OLED route is not the one you're willing to take, the INNOCN 32M2V seems like an excellent choice. If only they would improve their firmware so that it handles HDR switching better…

Backlight Uniformity

To give you an idea of the backlight's uniformity, I set the brightness of the monitor to 250 cd/m² before taking a photo of the panel in a completely dark room. I did my best to find a combination of the ISO value and shutter speed that would capture the screen in a way that has it look as close to what my eyes were seeing in real life. I took two photos, with local dimming technology off and on.



The photos show that there's some backlight bleed present on the edges of the panel, but it completely goes away once local dimming is activated. At that point, the panel displays exceptionally deep blacks, not far from what you'd get from an OLED panel.

Viewing Angles

The viewing angles of the IPS panel built into the INNOCN 32M2V are excellent. There's no visible shift in colors when changing sitting positions.