Innocn 15.6" 4k OLED Monitor Testing PU15-PRE
Posted: 16 Aug 2022, 00:47
Okay, so I did it, I went out and bought one of those laptop-turned-desktop portable OLED monitors. I actually bought 3 of them Magedok, Innocn, and Virzen.
Right out of the gate the Virzen won on response time and the Magedok won on inputs, but both had bad low gray uniformity. (we are talking marginal 1% blacks where the OLED's first turn on) leading me to return them. On the Virzen this looked to be a manufacturing flaw but on the Magedok UPS had its way with the package and smashed one end and it was the same end with the un-even low level gray. So It may have been damage.
That left me with the star of this test/review the Innocn 15.6" 4k OLED Monitor Testing PU15-PRE Lets get straight to it. It's AMOLED and performs spectacularly as you would expect from an OLED. The panel is made by Samsung. Oddly Innocn seems to be under-selling the performance on it boasting Brightness: 300CD/m2(Typ.) and a contrast ratio of 100,000:1. The blacks are pure black, emitting absolutely no light at all in a pitch black room and with a dark gradient on you can not tell where the screen ends and the bezel begins in the dark.
As for the peak brightness it says that it is 300CD/M2 or 300nits and while I have no way to validate this claim it is bright enough to be hard to look at on a white text document, much brighter than my quantum dot monitor when at peak and I am running the Innocn at 100% contrast and only 56% brightness. It is brighter than my phone's oled as well (Nubia red magic 6 pro) so you will not be disappointed with the overall brightness of this screen.
The one area where the claims of Innocn are NOT valid is in the "HDR" performance. This display does not identify as HDR and will NOT do any HDR standards. However with it's excellent black level and high brightness you still get a satisfying "pop" experience on bright areas that will not disappoint. The Magedok and Virzen displays had similar issues.
The 60hz display performs better on motion clarity than my LCD displays, but nothing like a tube and likely nothing like the big brother 120hz tv's and ultrawide OLED monitors available today. Photos below but I would caution you that with such a small and high resolution display focus was a major factor and real life performance far exceeds what you will see below. I would say it is closer to a 75hz display than the fairly average 60hz looking LCD like performance you see below. One benefit is that it has no overdrive and no over-shoot when it comes to motion blur so if you are like me and find overshoot absolutely intolerable at any level you will be satisfied.
The last thoughts that comes to mine before the photos is that the size of this display is not as "small" as it sounds once you position it closer to you with a proper tablet stand. With my "NEWSOUL Portable Monitor Stand" I can turn this monitor any way I like and use the touch screen features to play Android games or tablet classics like Plant's VS Zombies on Steam. Also I can easily flip the monitor 180 degrees to help ward off burn in from UI elements. Something that a TV or OLED monitor at a larger size can NOT easily do without a vesa mount. Remember, many gaming laptops are in the 15-17" range and at 15.6 inches you can have a satisfying gaming experience as long as you're not trying out Factorio at max zoom but with a 4k pixel density at this size the DPI is so astronomical that it is a mind blowing experience. Throwing my 3080ti at it to play some RTX titles like Minecraft and Cyberpunk was incredible. Any upscaling from DLSS is completely lost at DPI 282.42 or Dot Pitch 0.0899 mm.
(Below) You can see it isn't the fastest display ever, but it is keeping up with my daily drivers and I have never had an issue. This is connected over HDMI. It's worth pointing out that the Virzen monitor despite it's flaws had a faster response time than either of the two LCD's in the background but I lost the photo. (Below) Is a static 1/60th exposure. (Below) Is a pair of pursuit camera shots taken at 1/20th exposure. Remember this is a tiny 4k display running without resolution scaling on. These were very difficult to take and IMO do not match real world eye tracking performance. They are both out of focus but over 2 hours of trying this was as good as I could get.
Right out of the gate the Virzen won on response time and the Magedok won on inputs, but both had bad low gray uniformity. (we are talking marginal 1% blacks where the OLED's first turn on) leading me to return them. On the Virzen this looked to be a manufacturing flaw but on the Magedok UPS had its way with the package and smashed one end and it was the same end with the un-even low level gray. So It may have been damage.
That left me with the star of this test/review the Innocn 15.6" 4k OLED Monitor Testing PU15-PRE Lets get straight to it. It's AMOLED and performs spectacularly as you would expect from an OLED. The panel is made by Samsung. Oddly Innocn seems to be under-selling the performance on it boasting Brightness: 300CD/m2(Typ.) and a contrast ratio of 100,000:1. The blacks are pure black, emitting absolutely no light at all in a pitch black room and with a dark gradient on you can not tell where the screen ends and the bezel begins in the dark.
As for the peak brightness it says that it is 300CD/M2 or 300nits and while I have no way to validate this claim it is bright enough to be hard to look at on a white text document, much brighter than my quantum dot monitor when at peak and I am running the Innocn at 100% contrast and only 56% brightness. It is brighter than my phone's oled as well (Nubia red magic 6 pro) so you will not be disappointed with the overall brightness of this screen.
The one area where the claims of Innocn are NOT valid is in the "HDR" performance. This display does not identify as HDR and will NOT do any HDR standards. However with it's excellent black level and high brightness you still get a satisfying "pop" experience on bright areas that will not disappoint. The Magedok and Virzen displays had similar issues.
The 60hz display performs better on motion clarity than my LCD displays, but nothing like a tube and likely nothing like the big brother 120hz tv's and ultrawide OLED monitors available today. Photos below but I would caution you that with such a small and high resolution display focus was a major factor and real life performance far exceeds what you will see below. I would say it is closer to a 75hz display than the fairly average 60hz looking LCD like performance you see below. One benefit is that it has no overdrive and no over-shoot when it comes to motion blur so if you are like me and find overshoot absolutely intolerable at any level you will be satisfied.
The last thoughts that comes to mine before the photos is that the size of this display is not as "small" as it sounds once you position it closer to you with a proper tablet stand. With my "NEWSOUL Portable Monitor Stand" I can turn this monitor any way I like and use the touch screen features to play Android games or tablet classics like Plant's VS Zombies on Steam. Also I can easily flip the monitor 180 degrees to help ward off burn in from UI elements. Something that a TV or OLED monitor at a larger size can NOT easily do without a vesa mount. Remember, many gaming laptops are in the 15-17" range and at 15.6 inches you can have a satisfying gaming experience as long as you're not trying out Factorio at max zoom but with a 4k pixel density at this size the DPI is so astronomical that it is a mind blowing experience. Throwing my 3080ti at it to play some RTX titles like Minecraft and Cyberpunk was incredible. Any upscaling from DLSS is completely lost at DPI 282.42 or Dot Pitch 0.0899 mm.
(Below) You can see it isn't the fastest display ever, but it is keeping up with my daily drivers and I have never had an issue. This is connected over HDMI. It's worth pointing out that the Virzen monitor despite it's flaws had a faster response time than either of the two LCD's in the background but I lost the photo. (Below) Is a static 1/60th exposure. (Below) Is a pair of pursuit camera shots taken at 1/20th exposure. Remember this is a tiny 4k display running without resolution scaling on. These were very difficult to take and IMO do not match real world eye tracking performance. They are both out of focus but over 2 hours of trying this was as good as I could get.