The $1099 Innocn 48Q1V does a lot of what I need. It’s a 4K OLED PC monitor with DisplayPort and HDMI 2.1 inputs, a matte finish and a refresh rate of up to 138Hz – oh, and it’s huge at 48 inches. As a fan of OLED technology in the living room, I was eager to use it as a PC monitor – to see if I could use it like a normal LCD without worrying about burn-in. A month later, I have some preliminary results to share.
To test the 48Q1V, I had no trouble using it like any other high-end PC gaming monitor—that means high brightness settings, no auto-hide taskbar, no dark theme, and no blank wallpaper. The 48Q1V saw a lot of Adobe Premiere use in these tests, with hours of still images, and I also tested a variety of games in both HDR and SDR to gauge its performance in this regard. The results were decidedly positive — but there were some definite caveats.
The 48Q1V is based on one of LG’s TV-sized OLED panels and comes housed in a TV-sized box, but the rest of the design is completely different, with the speaker bar covered in soft gray fabric. Below that, there are five adjustment buttons and a power switch; a remote is also provided to change settings. There’s also a height-adjustable stand that can tilt but not swivel, plus a 200×200 VESA mount via an adapter plate for wall mounting. I did try attaching it to my Ergotron monitor arm, but of course it was too heavy to hold.
The back of the monitor is similarly minimalist, with a DisplayPort 1.4 input, three HDMI 2.1 inputs, USB-A and USB-C ports (the latter with a 65W power delivery), and a 3.5mm audio output. There’s also a C5 power connector with a built-in power supply, which is handy, as well as two RGB LED strips running along the left and right sides of the monitor, with multiple lighting modes. It’s a good-looking monitor, but the added height of the permanently attached speaker bar may not be to everyone’s taste, although it does produce a noticeably better effect than typical built-in monitors, with reasonable clarity and some lows End said.
Due to its 48-inch span, actually using the monitor was initially overwhelming, and coming from a curved ultrawide monitor, it even seemed convex at first. Once I got used to it, though, I liked that it was big enough to enjoy a true 3840×2160 at 100% scaling, which translates to a lot of desktop real estate you can control. I also appreciate Innocn’s choice to go for a matte finish on the panel, giving it a more LCD-like aesthetic and minimizing glare without negatively impacting color reproduction.
Image quality is very good at first glance. As an OLED display, this monitor offers perfect black levels, vibrant colors and instant pixel response. I kept the same wallpaper between my LCD monitor and this OLED monitor, and the depth of the panel instantly changed my perception of the desktop due to its inky black levels. Everything feels more dramatic than I used to, and I love it.
The only downside to using an LG OLED panel as a display is its WRGB sub-pixel structure, which Windows 11’s ClearType feature doesn’t handle very well. This means that some text/color combinations may look slightly less sharp than they should in practice, and Microsoft needs to specifically support WRGB to fix this. Even at normal viewing distances, I didn’t find it too distracting, but you might notice certain color combinations, such as yellow highlights.
Another consideration is that, like LG’s OLEDs, the display dims slightly to avoid potential burn-in when a static image remains on-screen. You can get around this with Service Mode on LG devices, and while they don’t recommend it, I haven’t found a similar option for Innocn displays to disable auto-dimming. I only found this a bit distracting while typing in Microsoft Word—it’s here that I noticed the screen getting dimmer over time, probably due to lack of movement. The 48Q1V also includes automatic screen saver and pixel tracking, two features that I suspect make it work well as a monitor. Basically, after a short period of time, when there is zero movement on the screen, the monitor goes into screensaver mode with a wrapping textbox. The idea is that it can protect the screen from hours of static images without any effort on the part of the user. I never power off the monitor while away, it takes care of itself – it’s up and running as soon as you get back to your desk.
Auto-dimming and WRGB subpixel arrangement are basically the two major downsides of using LG OLED panels in display configurations, but they’re far from deal breakers, as in other areas of image quality, OLED quality shines.
With these mandatory precautions in place, it should come as no surprise that it survived unscathed. I scanned for defects using an all-white and gray screen and found zero evidence of image retention or burn-in. My LG CX OLED TV does suffer from temporary image retention, so I assume this display uses a newer panel that is less susceptible. As such, I’d be happy to recommend this monitor for normal PC use, as the risk of burn-in of any kind seems minimal and doesn’t require any specific action from the user. You can use it like any LCD monitor without any issues, which is great.
When gaming, the improvement in image quality compared to my IPS LCD cannot be overstated. Contrast is richer, colors are more vibrant, and motion clarity is greatly improved. During this review, I made a video for Nightdive’s System Shock Remake, which turned out to be the perfect point of comparison. Games feel more immersive when parked in front of a monitor with proper black levels. What really surprised me was how effortlessly this monitor could handle near-black content — shadow detail was pristine.
The monitor supports up to 138Hz as its maximum refresh rate, but I mostly use 120Hz to prevent jittery video playback. AMD FreeSync Premium supports VRR, but it’s not G-Sync certified – so I had to tick an extra box to use VRR with the RTX 4090, which worked fine. HDR is also supported and great for gaming, but enabling it disables most monitor settings. Thankfully, using the i1 Display Pro colorimeter, I determined that the RGB values were still within acceptable limits, with just a slight push on blue. There also seems to be a slight increase in sharpness in HDR mode — not noticeable in most content, but noticeable in Windows system fonts.
When measuring the performance of an OLED panel in HDR, both small highlight and full field brightness must be measured. Highlight performance is lower than typical OLED TVs I’ve tested, which produce about 450 nits of brightness using the 2 percent small window test pattern. However, full white drops that down to 143 nits, which is on par with recent OLED TVs. As a PC monitor, it’s still very good when working with actual content, and the contrast feels adequate thanks to perfect black levels. SDR brightness performance is reasonable, with peak 2% window measuring 333 nits and full field white delivering 113 nits.
While the numbers are somewhat average, the display’s performance remains solid in practice thanks to its all-important underlying technology. Any loss of brightness is quickly offset by perfect contrast. If you want your screen to be as bright as possible while using your desktop and don’t care about black levels, an LCD is still a better overall choice.
One question that comes to mind in this review is – what makes it a monitor and not a TV? This has many benefits, including a proper DisplayPort 1.4 input, which is often preferable to HDMI for PC users – especially those who don’t have a graphics card that supports HDMI 2.1 or want to maximize the refresh rate. For my use case, this meant that the monitor reported a maximum resolution of 3840×2160, not the 4096×2160 you might see when connected to an LG TV – which doesn’t match the monitor’s pixel grid, but sometimes automatically selects PC games.
The built-in interface has its pros and cons too – poorly designed, Innocn’s efforts lag behind the mainstream gaming brands, but at least the menus are quicker to navigate than those on a regular smart TV thanks to its simplicity. There are also some useful tools here, including four color presets: a standard mode with full user customization, and sRGB, Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 modes. There are also adjustments for sharpness, shadow balance, and low blue light, as well as options for hue, saturation, and dynamic brightness. I recommend leaving sharpness at zero to avoid edge ringing and keep the default shadow balance. If you leave the contrast setting at 50, sRGB mode produces excellent, accurate results out of the box.
The most intriguing feature is labeled Brightness Mode, which controls the response of the Automatic Brightness Limiter (ABL). High Brightness mode allows the panel to reach higher brightness levels, but it also results in a more aggressive ABL, which I find distracting for desktop use. Conversely, the Normal mode setting limits the panel’s maximum brightness, but provides more consistent brightness.
Split-screen mode is also supported, allowing you to use a second input of your choice in a split-screen or picture-in-picture configuration. Given the size of the monitor, I found this useful, for example when capturing a game from an external source, I was able to use the capture card’s passthrough feature to send a direct signal to the monitor’s HDMI input. I can then see this image and play games without additional input lag or other issues associated with capturing footage. Neat.
Finally, there are RGB strips on the left and right sides of the display, which are surprisingly configurable, including the option to match the dominant color of whatever you’re viewing. When playing System Shock, I like the rich purple hues cast on the wall behind the monitor. I’m not an RGB guy, but it’s a nice touch, and you can disable it if you want.
The experience is great, as you’ve guessed at this point in the review, but I do have some additional details about the overall user experience. First off, this monitor doesn’t support black frame insertion of any kind, which is a huge miss since we know this LG panel can handle it just fine. Admittedly, BFI is generally not possible when combined with the VRR that most people use this monitor for, but I prefer this option. Second, and even more oddly, the monitor was uncharacteristically slow at switching resolutions, taking about 7 seconds each time. While certainly not a deal breaker, I did find this a bit annoying when tweaking settings in some games, and it’s something to consider.
So, after testing it for a while, I think the experience of using large OLEDs as PC monitors is positive. You get a great picture with lots of screen real estate, and the picture is more engaging than any LCD monitor I’ve used – great for gaming and watching movies. The 48Q1V also functions as a PC monitor should, with its OLED panel requiring no additional maintenance from the user. However, the auto-dimming feature is a bit annoying at times, and I’d like to see a more robust menu system with features like black frame insertion. It’s certainly not the only 48″ OLED display on the market, and I’m interested in testing them, but for now I’m more than happy to use the 48Q1V as my daily driver.
