To be honest, I had never heard of Innocn. But here it is: a $600 (now discounted at $480 (open in new tab)) 40-inch ultra-wide-angle IPS gaming monitor that's purely for gaming; as an affordable, large-screen gaming panel that doesn't require a GPU like a 4K display, it ticks a lot of boxes.

However, it is not a "4K" monitor.

However, it is not necessarily perfect. The classic IPS black level problem remains, and usually no amount of gamma correction or shadow boosting can solve it without ruining other aspects of the monitor's color reproduction. However, a few adjustments can actually alleviate many of these problems and leave colors quite bright.

HDR obviously sucks, despite its peak brightness of 500 cd/m². However, HDR on PCs is always the worst, so you don't necessarily have to settle for Innocn screens.

If you're looking for a bigger, wider IPS monitor for gaming and productivity, this is an affordable way to go; if you're happy with a VA panel, let's face it, VA panels still make great budget gaming monitors.

The Innocn 40C1R, however, offers the full IPS experience with a much larger field of view. The panel is made by BOE and is not strictly an AUO or LG IPS, so technically it is an ADS display, but it can be classified as "IPS-like."

It certainly feels big and colorful, but perhaps not as vibrant as some of the more expensive screens we've seen recently, such as the brilliant Alienware OLED (open in new tab) or Eve/Dough's glossy 4K (open in new tab). But when you stick "Red Dead Redemption" on it, the expansive view is unquestionably perfect for the cinematic 21:9 aspect ratio.

And when it is enlarged to 40 inches, it really takes over the eyeballs.

This is a larger panel, but it doesn't offer any higher resolution than the standard 34-inch ultrawide. In other words, you get 3440 x 1440 resolution, not the 3840 x 1600 you get with the more expensive 38-inch LG 38WN95C-W. In other words, the number of pixels per inch is much lower, only 93ppi, as opposed to the 110ppi you get with a standard 34-inch ultrawide. [3440 x 1440 resolution is still beautiful at this scale, meaning you don't need a huge, powerful GPU to handle this abominable pixel demand, which means it's not the sharpest screen when viewing text in Windows, but it's not eye-tiring either.

When it comes to HDR shenanigans, there is 16 zones of local dimming. Honestly, HDR on a PC is still a lottery, and if your screen doesn't have thousands of local zones or has ludicrous peak luminance levels, it's not worth it.

Innocn's 500 cd/m² brightness is appreciated in standard mode, but not very useful when it comes to HDR gaming.

While we're talking specs, I like that the USB Type-C connection provides both video input and up to 90W of power. That means I can connect my work laptop to the screen and work on a huge second display while still being powered. Other features include a DisplayPort 1.4 connection and one HDMI 2.0 port. It is worth noting that the screen runs at 144 Hz with a DP cable, but is limited to 100 Hz via HDMI.

The overall gaming experience on the Innocn 40C1R is impressive. I love ultrawide gaming monitors, and the vast 40-inch screen area really works for me. However, the experience right out of the box is not great, as the panel defaults to 60% brightness when you change the monitor settings. As I mentioned earlier, we see the typical weakness of IPS with respect to black levels.

Interestingly, this weakness was alleviated considerably when I switched to the Adobe preset in the OSD and increased the brightness to 80%. And that's without increasing the saturation of the whites. Contrast was decent, especially in the low range. However, changing this setting did cause a slight loss of crispness, especially with regard to the red tints.

But you only really notice this when you are tweaking the image in Photoshop, not when you are running around in the wilderness or taking down tanks in Battlefield V. At the list price of $600, it's not worth spending just a little more to get to the $800 mark and seek out truly brilliant images like the Dough Spectrum 4K glossy.

However, the Innocn 40C1R often sells for as low as $499 or even $449 on Amazon, making it an incredibly affordable gaming monitor at this price. There is no other IPS-like ultrawide that delivers 144 Hz at this price other than Innocn.