Picture Quality

The INNOCN 39G1R features a 39-inch widescreen 8-bit VA panel with a native resolution of 2560x1440, giving it a fairly high dot pitch of 0.3329 mm (around 76.29 PPI). Such low pixel density means that you can't expect much in terms of picture sharpness, which is particularly visible when working with documents, doing graphic design, and even surfing the Web. The edges of fonts and icons look slightly jagged, especially if you're coming from a smaller monitor with equal or higher resolution than 2560x1440. On the other hand, the sub-par sharpness is much less of an issue for gaming and media consumption, where the massive panel will get you so immersed in the content that the imperfect sharpness will mostly go unnoticed. This is especially true when playing fast-paced games. Before trying it out for myself, I was sure I wouldn't be able to get over the less-than-stellar sharpness of the 76.29 PPI panel, but it only took a few minutes of Battlefield 2042 and Rocket League to stop thinking about things like screen resolutions and pixel densities. The subtle 3000R curvature of the panel certainly helps to emphasize its key selling point.

Having said that, I don't consider the 39G1R a good option if you won't predominately use it for gaming and multimedia. If you use your monitor for work during the day and only an hour or two of gaming in the evening, resist buying the 39G1R, as well as any other monitor with comparably low pixel density (such as 27-inch Full HD panels, which offer around 82 PPI).

To my surprise, the 39-inch panel isn't difficult to use from a normal sitting distance. It successfully balances between being really big and too big. I didn't have to constantly tilt my head to keep track of the mouse pointer, which was a huge annoyance with a 48-inch OLED monitor I tested recently. Combined with a subtle 3000R curvature, the 39-inch panel of the 39G1R offers a ton of screen real estate and manages to fill the field of view nicely. If anything, the INNOCN 39G1R made me want a 4K 39-inch monitor. Now that would be a properly interesting combination of panel size and resolution for hardcore users!

The screen uses a White-LED (W-LED) backlight unit. It's controlled by direct current (DC), which makes it flicker-free at any brightness level. There's no local dimming support, meaning you can't expect much (or anything) in terms of HDR performance.


The screen coating on the INNOCN 39G1R is glossy – not a common occurrence nowadays. You probably know what that means; the colors look more saturated and vibrant, but at the expense of the entire screen behaving like a mirror. In other words, if your room has any natural or artificial light sources, which it likely does, you'll regularly see your face and your surroundings reflected in the panel. While this occurrence isn't that noticeable while gaming or watching video (as long as the content being displayed isn't very dark), it does show up in various situations daily. For example, both my home office and living room are set up in a way that there are large windows a couple of meters behind the sitting position. Using the INNOCN 39G1R in such an environment can be annoying. Depending on the time of the day, I couldn't really see what was being displayed in the upper corners of the panel, as there was simply too much reflection present. The reflective nature of this monitor's panel will undoubtedly be a dealbreaker for many. If I had the option to choose, I'd pick a regular matte panel every single time. The reflective coating is smooth and the picture isn't perceived as grainy or dirty from a normal sitting distance.

To test the picture quality of the INNOCN 39G1R, I've used a combination of the X-Rite i1Display Pro and DisplayCAL, a powerful software solution for display calibration and profiling that is completely free assuming you own a supported colorimeter.

Picture Quality at Factory Settings

I tested the picture quality of the INNOCN 39G1R at its factory defaults right after plugging the monitor in and allowing the panel to warm up for about an hour. At factory settings, the picture subjectively looks off in the color accuracy and gamma tracking department.


My initial set of measurements showed a picture brightness of 234.9 cd/m², and a surprisingly high static contrast ratio of 5.072:1. The glossy panel coating is showing its key benefit here. The measured white point was way too high, sitting at 7.741 K, but even more problematic was the measured gamma curve, which did a poor job of tracking the reference curve. The gamma value was significantly above what the input signal required, which means all content is displayed darker than it should be. Luckily the OSD offers gamma controls, so we'll try to address these issues without factory calibration.


The colorimeter also revealed certain color inaccuracies. The average ∆E was 2.42, which isn't bad, but the maximum measured deviation of 6.81 is quite high. The inaccuracies showed up in certain shades of blue and gray.

To address these issues, we have to dive into the OSD and change a couple of settings. First, to fix the white balance, I went into the Color Setting > Color Temperature menu, changed it from Warm to USER, and then adjusted the Red channel to 48, Green to 49, and left Blue at 50. Then, to adjust the brightness to 250 cd/m², which is my preferred setting for comfortable all-day usage, I had to set the Brightness, found in the Brightness/Contrast menu, to 73. Finally, to vastly improve the gamma tracking, the Gamma needs to be changed from 2.2 to 2.0. You'll find the appropriate option in the Color Setting menu. Let's compare the measurements before and after doing the OSD tweaks.



The overall picture quality was improved significantly, in just about every single aspect. The white balance went down to 6,585 K, the static contrast was even higher, and we got rid of the inaccuracies in the grays, improving the average color accuracy in the process. The biggest improvement was done to the gamma, though. As you can see, with the gamma set to 2.0 instead of 2.2, it actually tracks much closer to what we want to see. It's still less-than-ideal at lower levels, where the actual gamma is higher than it should be, it looks decent from 20% up.


This is what the CIE diagram looks like. I measured a 99.4% coverage of the sRGB and 86.5% coverage of the DCI-P3 color spaces. The gamut volume equals 122.6% for sRGB and 86.9% for DCI-P3 color spaces, respectively. The measured Adobe RGB coverage is 79.8%, with Adobe RGB gamut volume reaching 84.5%.


This is what the luminance and color uniformity of the INNOCN 39G1R 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. Luminance and color uniformity are somewhat stable around the center and upper edge of the panel, but the colorimeter did pick up issues at various brightness levels around the left and bottom edge, where the brightness can drop by up to 18% compared to the center of the screen, and the ∆E goes above 7. The contrast deviation is surprisingly good for the most part. All that means that the 39G1R can't be used for any kind of color-critical work, which, of course, isn't what it's set out to do anyway.

Picture Quality After Calibration

I calibrated the display 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. The calibration was conducted with the adjusted settings which I've listed above.

Here's what we get after calibrating the monitor.



After calibration, the picture quality of the INNOCN 39G1R further improves, especially in the color accuracy department. The gamma tracking is now also even better, actually very close to ideal. Due to the aforementioned color and luminance uniformity shortcomings, the 39G1R can't be considered for color-critical work. Still, it's nice to see that it can offer a solid overall picture quality when calibrated.

Backlight Uniformity

To give you an idea of the backlight's uniformity, I set the monitor's brightness 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 made it look as close to what my eyes were seeing in real life.



Illuminating a large screen with an edge backlight is challenging, especially with budget constraints in mind. This photo demonstrates that vividly. As you can see, there are various bright spots across the panel, particularly on its edges. The good news is they're not visible when displaying any kind of brighter content, but if you're playing a darker game or watching a movie with black bars, you'll be able to spot them with the naked eye.

Viewing Angles

The viewing angles of the VA panel built into the INNOCN 39G1R are solid. There's no visible shift in colors in a normal sitting position or when changing positions. The 3000R panel curvature does a good job of avoiding the vignetting effect around the corners of the screen.