Introduction

Not long after our last portable monitor quick look article, where I talked about the INNOCN Portable Monitor N2F (read it here), INNOCN sent over a pair of their portable OLED displays. This time around, we'll examine the INNOCN OLED Portable Monitor 15K1F. I had a chance to use it as my secondary screen in various scenarios for almost a month while waiting for it to become available in the United States. A refurbished batch is still available on INNOCN's website, at a heavily discounted price of $150 (it costed $420 new).



The $420 price tag might strike you as surprisingly steep for a 15.6-inch portable monitor, but a closer look explains it all. This is an OLED monitor, technologically much more advanced and significantly more expensive to manufacture than IPS or VA monitors of the same kind. The benefits of OLED panels are well known. Instead of using a backlight, each pixel of the INNOCN OLED Portable Monitor 15K1F (and any other OLED panel) is self-lit and can alter its brightness depending on the input signal. Because nothing is lighting them from behind, when pixels of an OLED panel display a black color, they simply turn off, thus achieving the "blackest blacks" possible. This is why we often see the "infinite contrast ratio" line in their technical specifications—you're dividing by zero brightness and get infinity as a result. Furthermore, OLED panels have wider viewing angles, wider color ranges, better color accuracy, faster pixel response times, and lower power consumption. They can also be made thinner, which is another direct benefit of not having an LED backlight.

All that hopefully puts the $420 asking price of the INNOCN OLED Portable Monitor 15K1F in perspective. As I already mentioned, this is a 15.6-inch monitor with Full HD (1920x1080) native resolution, a claimed 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, 400 nits of brightness, and a response time of 1 ms. The refresh rate is limited to 60 Hz. The monitor offers USB-C and Mini-HDMI connectivity, which gives it a lot of versatility. You can use it as a secondary monitor for easier multitasking on your laptop when on the go, secondary screen for your desktop PC, portable display for your gaming console or smartphone, external viewfinder for your camera, or anything in between.

The INNOCN OLED Portable Monitor 15K1F is supplied with a 2-in-1 case, which serves as a screen protector and multipurpose stand. INNOCN bundles it with a power brick and both cables you might need to connect it to your device of choice, USB-C, and Mini-HDMI.

Packaging and Contents

Regarding the packaging, the INNOCN OLED Portable Monitor 15K1F is pretty much identical to the Portable Monitor N2F, which I covered previously. The product is packed in a simple cardboard box. It shows a silhouette sketch of the monitor on the front and goes over its key features on the sides. This is where you'll find out that the monitor offers a 15.6-inch diagonal and Mini-HDMI and USB-C connectivity. Somewhat bizarrely, nowhere on the box is it mentioned that the 15K1F is based on the OLED display technology, which will be its most compelling feature to many.


Inside the box, you'll find the monitor itself, along with a 2-in-1 cover, user manual, calibration sheet, 15 W USB-C power brick, 1.8-meter USB-C power cable, 1.5-meter USB-C signal cable (they're of course interchangeable), and 1.5-meter Mini-HDMI cable. That's everything you need to get started right away. Of course, you can power the monitor with any other 15 W power brick you have on hand, like the one you use to power your phone.

Closer Look

Thanks to its OLED panel, the INNOCN OLED Portable Monitor 15K1F is only 5 millimeters (0.2 in) thick. Its slimness alone instantly makes it look like a high-end tablet. That impression is fortified by its metal sides and back and curved upper and bottom edges. Aside from being sleek, INNOCN's monitor is quite light too. It comes in at a mere 726 grams (1.6 oz), making it very practical to carry around in a backpack or bag. It should fit into just about any standard laptop bag with ease, even right on top of your laptop.


The supplied 2-in-1 cover is made from a combination of plastic and rubber. It improves the grip when handling the monitor, protecting it from scratches and other types of damage while being carried around. The front flap of the 2-in-1 cover covers the panel entirely when closed. However, it suffers from the same issue I noticed on the cover supplied with the INNOCN Portable Monitor N2F: If you turn the monitor upside down, the flap detaches from the screen, leaving it exposed. Imagine lifting a book into the air and having its front cover suddenly open; the same thing happens here. Because of that, some care has to be taken when packing the monitor up and throwing it into a bag. You want to make sure there's no room for the flap to open inside your bag; otherwise, a foreign object could come between the flap and panel. The flap itself is foldable and serves as a monitor stand. It is equipped with magnets that affix it to the back of the monitor to make the "stand" sturdier. I didn't have any issues with the monitor tipping over, but it should also be mentioned that the stand doesn't offer more than a single angle for the panel, which is what I initially expected.


The INNOCN OLED Portable Monitor 15K1F is equipped with an identical combination of inputs as the previous INNOCN portable monitor I had a chance to test, so I can only repeat what I already mentioned in that article. On its left side, you'll find a pair of USB-C ports and a Mini HDMI video input. Either USB-C port can also be used as a video input, and the secondary one is there to power the monitor in case your video source isn't utilizing its USB-C interface for power delivery. In other words, if your laptop's or smartphone's USB-C port supports Power Delivery (PD), you only need to connect it to the monitor with a single (supplied) USB-C cable. Through its USB-C interface, the monitor will receive power and data (video, audio, mouse, and keyboard inputs). This is by far the most intuitive way to use the INNOCN OLED Portable Monitor 15K1F, as using the monitor on the go comes down to having it and a single USB-C cable on hand. Of course, the amount of power provided by your device will determine the maximum achievable brightness of the monitor. For example, my OnePlus 7 Pro delivered enough power to the monitor to achieve a brightness of 72 cd/m² with the brightness set to 20 in the OSD. It wasn't possible to raise it above that until I connected an external power brick to the secondary USB-C port. This is something you'll have to do if your video source has a USB-C port that only works as a video output and isn't capable of Power Delivery, too. Any extra power delivered to the monitor will be routed to charge the connected device's battery (laptop, smartphone). Of course, if you're connecting the INNOCN monitor to your device via the Mini HDMI input, you have to use the supplied power brick.


On both sides of the case are hole cutouts for the integrated 1-watt stereo speakers. In terms of sound quality and maximum volume, these speakers can't replace a pair of headphones for anything more demanding than a quick YouTube video, but for situations when you simply can't be bothered to connect anything else (and are in a fairly quiet environment), they do come in handy.


The monitor is equipped with three buttons. A multipurpose button on the top works as a power button when pressed and held for 3 seconds. A short press opens the OSD and confirms the current selection, while two buttons on the right side of the monitor are used to navigate the OSD. When the OSD is closed, the side buttons adjust the speaker volume.

OSD

The OSD offers the usual settings: brightness, contrast, speaker volume, color temperature, contrast, color saturation, input selection, and picture profiles. There are six profiles, tailored for reading, video, gaming, and color-critical work (Adobe RGB, sRGB), but I found it best to stick with the default, assuming you plan to calibrate the monitor.

Picture Quality

The INNOCN OLED Portable Monitor 15K1F is equipped with a 15.6-inch 10-bit OLED panel. The native resolution is 1920x1080, giving it a pixel density of 141 PPI and a decently sharp picture as a result. The panel is somewhat glossy, so reflections could be a problem when the monitor is used in a room with a lot of light, and especially outside. The viewing angles are fantastic. There's no color or contrast shift even at extreme angles, so you're welcome to change your sitting position any way you like. This is an apparent strong suit of the OLED display technology and one of the strongest aspects of INNOCN's portable monitor.

The picture is very dim at factory settings, with the brightness sitting at a mere 39 cd/m². At the same time, the white point is too low, sitting at around 6,264 K. I measured a gamma value of 1.92 and ultimately found no way to improve it as the OSD doesn't offer any gamma-related options. A lower-than-ideal gamma means the panel will interpret shadows as brighter than intended, making the image look slightly washed out.


Even though INNOCN makes some bold claims regarding the factory calibration of the OLED Portable Monitor 15K1F, my X-Rite i1Display Pro colorimeter strongly disagrees, showing an average ΔE of 4.14 at factory settings. Various green and blue color tones were particularly inaccurate, so I wanted to see what could be done to fix them.

First and foremost, if you plan to use the INNOCN OLED Portable Monitor 15K1F as your primary portable gaming monitor, or a secondary monitor for your home or office laptop/desktop PC, you must focus on increasing its brightness and fixing the color temperature. This is achieved by diving into the OSD, setting the color temperature to USER, and manually adjusting the three primary channels. I got the best results after leaving the red channel at its default value of 50 while reducing the green and blue channels to 49. The only other thing left to do was to push the brightness to 77. After doing so, I got a brightness of 251 cd/m² and a white point of a bit under 6,500 K, admittedly with no gamma improvements.


The only way I was able to make the colors truly accurate was to calibrate the display. After doing so, the average ΔE went down to 0.4, and the maximum deviation was reduced to only 0.95. In this state, the INNOCN OLED Portable Monitor 15K1F could potentially be used for more demanding tasks, such as photo and video editing, especially when we take into consideration its excellent color uniformity and contrast stability. The measured gamut volume is 166.8% for sRGB and 118.2% for DCI-P3 color spaces, with the actual gamut coverage measuring 99.1% and 96.6%, respectively.

If you don't have a way to calibrate the display, one other option to improve its color accuracy is to set the picture profile to sRGB. That lowers the average ΔE to 2.97 and reduces the maximum deviation from 9.51 to 5.22. While still not great, this is a significant improvement from the factory settings. To get the brightness to around 250 cd/m² in sRGB mode, adjust the OSD brightness to 75.

Gaming Performance

When it comes to gaming performance, the INNOCN OLED Portable Monitor 15K1F has excellent pixel response time and no notable motion blur, but its refresh rate is limited to 60 Hz, and my LDAT testing device showed an average input lag of 45.9 milliseconds, with a recorded minimum of 37.9 ms, and a maximum of 54.9 ms. All these values are very high and easily noticeable even outside of gaming, while clicking around in Windows. The monitor can be used for casual mobile gaming, but it definitely can't be your primary gaming screen even if you don't consider yourself very demanding in that regard.

The everyday practicality of the INNOCN OLED Portable Monitor 15K1F is undeniable. With its sleek frame and a carrying case that doubles as its stand, as well as simple USB-C connectivity, it's immensely intuitive to lug around and use. I used it in a similar fashion like the previous INNOCN portable monitor I had a chance to try out, which meant I was connecting it to my laptop when working remotely and the Blackmagic ATEM Mini Extreme ISO live production switcher, which I use when doing live streaming at local IT events. In the latter scenario, the 15K1F proved to be a great multiview screen, although I did have to consider the amount of light in my surroundings when positioning it to avoid screen glare. I also found it to be a nice camera preview monitor.

However, all these things can be said of much less expensive portable monitors, including INNOCN's own INNOCN Portable Monitor N2F, which is available for a quarter of the price. That inevitably brings us back to the $420 price tag of the INNOCN OLED Portable Monitor 15K1F. For that amount of money, the 15K1F should offer flawless picture quality and exceptional gaming performance. Since neither is true, it's going to be a tough sell.