Innocn 39G1R Review: 1440p 165Hz FreeSync Curved Gaming Monitor

If you’re looking for a big yet affordable gaming monitor, the Innocn 39G1R offers a unique set of specifications.

Image Quality

The Innocn 39G1R monitor has a 38.5″ viewable screen with the standard 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio and a 2560×1440 QHD resolution. It also has a subtle 3000R screen curvature for added immersion.

This provides you with a pixel density of 76.29 PPI (pixels per inch), which is in between that of 27″ 1080p (81 PPI) and 32″ 1080p (70 PPI) displays.

So, don’t expect particularly sharp text and details. However, this display is mainly meant for content consumption and its big screen size does improve immersion.

Due to its big size, you’ll be sitting further away from it than you would from a standard 27″ – 32″ monitor, which will alleviate the low pixel density issue, especially in games and videos.

In fact, at a viewing distance of around 3¾ ft (~115cm), the individual pixels won’t be distinguishable at all. Here’s how the 38.5″ screen size compares to the more popular 32″ and 42″ displays.

Moving on, the Innocn 39G1R uses a VA panel with a high 3,000:1 static contrast ratio for deep blacks, while its 350-nit peak brightness allows the display to get more than bright enough under normal lighting conditions.

It covers the standard sRGB color space, so you won’t get as vibrant colors as that of some wide gamut monitors, but the image quality is rich overall with accurate SDR colors without over-saturation.

HDR (High Dynamic Range) is also supported, but without a proper local dimming solution, it can be ignored on this monitor.

Performance

The Innocn 39G1R has a maximum refresh rate of 165Hz, which provides you with a huge boost in motion clarity as opposed to the standard 60Hz/75Hz monitors.

As expected from a VA panel display in this price range, there’s noticeable ghosting behind fast-moving objects, especially in dark scenes. Some users are more sensitive to this than others, but we find it tolerable for everyday use and casual gaming.

The amount of ghosting isn’t ideal for fast-paced competitive gaming, but in this case, you’d want a smaller display anyway. Input lag performance, on the other hand, is excellent with only ~5ms of delay, which is imperceptible at 165Hz.

There are four response time overdrive modes: Off, Low, Middle and High.

At high frame rates or a fixed 165Hz refresh rate, we recommend using the High option as it has the least amount of ghosting and no overshoot.

At 60Hz or when using variable refresh rate at low frame rates, dial it back to Middle to avoid inverse ghosting.

Here’s how it compares to a bit faster VA panel of the MSI 343CQR and a lot faster BenQ EX3210U model with an IPS panel.

Variable refresh rate is supported with a 48-165Hz range via AMD FreeSync Premium and while the monitor doesn’t have official NVIDIA’s G-SYNC Compatible certification, it works with compatible GeForce GPUs.

Some VRR brightness flickering can be observed in games with unsteady frame rates and in in-game menus and loading screens.

The Innocn 39G1R also supports Motion Blur Reduction by enabling MPRT in the OSD menu.

This feature uses backlight strobing to reduce perceived motion blur at the cost of picture brightness and screen flickering, but due to its slow pixel response time speed, it’s not that useful on this monitor.

The monitor is flicker-free (unless MPRT is enabled) and has a low-blue light filter mode.

Features

Beneath the bottom bezel of the screen, there’s a directional joystick for quick and easy navigation through the OSD (On-Screen Display) menu.

Useful features include Blacklevel (improves visibility in dark scenes), various picture presets, Multi-Window (Picture in Picture, Picture by Picture) and Noise Reduction (sharpens low-resolution content).

You’ll also find the Dynamic Luminous Control option, which we recommend leaving disabled for the best image quality.

Apart from the standard image adjustment tools (brightness, contrast, color temperature, etc.), you also get a few advanced settings, including sharpness, gamma and 6-axis hue/saturation.

Design & Connectivity

The stand of the monitor is sturdy and offers tilt, swivel and height adjustment, but it doesn’t support VESA mounting.

Another rare feature of the Innocn 39G1R is that it has a glossy screen surface instead of the typical matte anti-glare coating. This makes the image appear more vivid without the added graininess of matte coatings, but the screen is more reflective, so you’ll have to keep in mind the lighting in your room.

There’s an RGB LED strip with customizable lighting at the rear of the display.

Connectivity options include two HDMI 2.0 ports (limited to 144Hz), two DisplayPort 1.4 inputs, a headphone jack and two built-in speakers.

Price & Similar Monitors

The Innocn 39G1R price ranges from $380 to $450, which is a decent price for a high refresh rate 1440p display of this size, especially after considering that it’s the only one available.

ASUS offers the ASUS ROG Swift PG38UQ 38″ 4K (with a much higher 116 PPI) display with a 144Hz 1ms IPS panel, but it’s a lot more expensive at $1,000.

To learn more about monitors and ensure you’re getting the model most suited for your personal preference, visit our comprehensive and always up-to-date best gaming monitor buyer’s guide.

Conclusion

Overall, if you want a large gaming monitor and don’t mind the low pixel density and standard VA panel drawbacks, the Innocn 39G1R is a solid option.

Specifications

Screen Size	38.5-inch
Screen Curvature	3000R
Resolution	2560×1440 (WQHD)
Panel Type	VA
Aspect Ratio	16:9 (Widescreen)
Refresh Rate	165Hz
Response Time	Not specified
Speakers	2x2W
Adaptive-Sync	FreeSync (48-165Hz)
Ports	2x DisplayPort 1.4, 2x HDMI 2.0
Other Ports	Headphone Jack
Brightness	350 cd/m²
Contrast Ratio	3000:1 (static)
Colors	1.07 billion (8-bit + FRC)
HDR	HDR10