INNOCN 27M2V vs LG 27GR95UM

2024 Jan 28

I wanted to share my experience with both the INNOCN 27M2V ¹ monitors and the new LG 27GR95UM (Amazon link here) since I've seen a lot of people on r/monitors - and I've been one of those people - speculating about the difference between the two. I took a lot of photos and have linked them in the IMGUR album of the INNOCN HDR vs the LG SDR; INNOCN HDR vs LG HDR; INNOCN SDR vs LG SDR; LG calibration test view. Both are 4K miniLED monitors with VESA HDR 1000 certification. To set the stage, here are my PC specs, which should handle multiple 4K displays with zero problems.

• ZOTAC NVIDIA 4080
• i9 13900K
• 96GB of RAM
• Gigabyte Z790 GAMING X AX ATX LGA1700 Motherboard
• 1600W power supply
• Win11 Pro

INNOCN 27M2V vs LG 27GR95UM

INNOCN 27M2V

It is undeniable that the picture is gorgeous on the INNOCNs. I've never seen a more beautiful screen outside of OLED. That is truly - for me at least - where the positives end with the INNOCN. I'll start with what we all know as a baseline: you cannot control the HDR brightness and local dimming is only available for HDR, so there's not much flexibility. The build quality is very cheap - I'm not a heavy typist and the monitors bounce on my desk - and the bevels are pretty large. Here's where my experience differs from others:

• In a dual setup, the INNOCNs take what feels like forever to boot up. 1-2 minutes of black screens, in sleep mode, flashing on and off, not responding to keyboard or mouse.
• Screens would randomly freeze and become non-responsive.
• Screens would sometimes randomly flash black.
• Monitors would both get extremely hot - I touched the edges to adjust them once and had to jerk my fingers back before they burned. I've never experienced a monitor doing that.
• Internet problems. When I have both monitors plugged into the GPU, my wireless internet tanks. I know that sounds crazy, but nothing else changed. I work in IT and so does my husband. We conducted intensive troubleshooting. Only thing that changed were the monitors. I unplugged them and connected my old monitors again...internet immediately came back. We replicated this two to three times.
• I have my work laptop plugged into the HDMI port while my home PC uses the display-ports. When I turn on my home PC, with the work laptop off, the monitors insist on reverting to the work PC, even though they were last on my personal PC. Example: I worked during the day, switched to home PC at night and turned off work PC. In the morning, I turn on my home PC and the monitors would default to the turned-off work computer.
• Work PC will send up to 120hz response rates with its specs. The work PC screen reflects this. Monitor caps at 60hz with work PC. HDMI cable I'm using is rated to 120.
• If I turned off one of the monitors, boot would be normal and super fast.

After a lot - and I mean a lot - of troubleshooting, including changing cables, testing other monitors, testing with my old PC, checking for driver/firmware updates, etc., where I determined it was neither my GPU nor my cables - I finally got the monitors to function without the internet issues and the boot issues by only leaving one plugged into my 4080 and plugging the other into my mobo to use the built-in graphics with the i9. I also unplugged my work laptop from the monitor whenever not in use.

I posted about my experience on the Amazon product page and INNOCN reached out to me and offered a refund with an apology about what I was experiencing. I was happily surprised, responded, and...it seemed like they were just waiting to get my contact info because I was then bombarded with asinine troubleshooting steps like "use a cable under 3.9 feet" and "don't plug your router into the monitor" (what???).

The quirks are so bad with this that I finally decided I needed to get something else; the LG debuted with a great deal and so I picked them up.

UPDATE 08 July 2024: I received an alert today from Amazon that they removed my honest and factual review about my experience with the Innocn monitors, which included the interaction I had with Innocn troubleshooting, detailed above. I don't know if Innocn reported the review. I would hope that were not the case, because if it were, I would question the validity and integrity regarding bias of the remaining reviews for Innocn products on the site.

LG 27GR95UM

On paper the LG 27GR95UM monitors sounded great. The ordering and delivering experience was atrocious, though, and is relevant to the LG buying experience for these, which is why I'm including it. I have a different billing address than my mailing address and LG locked me out of the purchase for what I can only assume was them thinking I was a scammer. I had to have my spouse order it to my billing address, which is an hour away, and then drive to pick up the monitors there. I ordered 14 Jan and they were supposed to arrive 19 Jan; FEDEX either lost or stole them because we hit 24 Jan and nothing had appeared. FEDEX tracking changed three times and wiped the history back to the original warehouse. I called FEDEX and they told me that they didn't know where the monitors were. I called LG and reported what had happened and asked them to send replacements.

Their associate informed me that their system showed that FEDEX still had them at the original warehouse; I told them that FedEx had just told me that they didn't know where the monitors were, and previously the last status had been Illinois before they wiped the history. LG then told me that until FedEx admitted to them it was lost and paid them back, I wouldn't receive a replacement or a refund. This absolutely stunned me. I informed them that as the consumer I should not have to be the one who has to eat the loss of money and loss of product while two giant corporations fight out who owes whom what, and if this wasn't resolved in less than 48 hours with either a refund or a replacement, I would be initiating a charge back with my bank.

Lo and behold, new monitors were overnighted to me. Thank you, LG. I will never buy directly from you ever again.

The monitors themselves:

• Build quality is super solid.
• Love how tiny the bezels are in comparison to the beefy ones on the INNOCNs.
• They don't get burn-my-fingers hot.
• Zero performance issues. Both are plugged into my GPU, as they should be, and my computer is functioning at peak performance finally with dual 4Ks. (And no internet troubles. As it should be.)
• Menu is so easy to use and intuitive.
• The SDR mode is stunning on these. I plugged in one of the LGs next to the INNOCN and duplicated the screen; initially I didn't realize the LG was not in HDR and was shocked at how identical both looked given the poor reviews for the LG's HDR mode until I realized that the LG was in SDR mode. When you compare SDR side by side, LG is superior.
• HDR....this one was interesting. I pulled up some OLED videos to take the photos I linked in the IMGUR album. Initially the LG is definitely more orange than the INNOCN. My spouse, who never notices anything like that, actually walked up and commented to me that it was noticeably more orange. I think that I was able to resolve this with calibration and menu settings. The photos show that the pictures are very similar. You can see that both monitors have zones of light coming through, but in different areas, and both are very pretty.
• HDR blooming without local dimming though...holy mackerel on the LG. It's bad. It's really bad. THAT SAID: I really only noticed it when I was in the Windows Calibration mode. I don't notice it during normal activity, like browsing the internet or gaming, unless I really pay attention for it. For example, I'm typing this with a black background and if I move my mouse around, I can see the lag in the LEDs trying to keep up with my mouse. But I have to really look for it.
• Local dimming is another story. Like others have noted: it's broken. It's not an issue if you leave it off, but if you're buying a monitor like this...you want to be using it. The good thing is that there are a lot of reviews starting to flood in on the LG website and LG has responded to at least one of them with a feedback form. I would encourage anyone who is experiencing this to find that review and submit feedback, and to leave a review yourself. LG has yet to push a firmware fix, though many people report that they're good about doing this, so I'm hopeful.

Overall, I'm keeping the LGs and returning the INNOCNs. The picture is gorgeous on the INNOCNs, but that is really it. The LG is 90% of the way to the INNOCN display and will hopefully be fixed with these firmware updates. The amount of glitches and issues I had with the INNOCNs and the hoops I had to jump through to get them to work for a peripheral that should really be plug and play at the end of the day is just too much to accept for what they cost (and I got them on sale for $599).

Update 08 July 2024: I forgot to update this earlier, but LG released a firmware update that completely fixed the blooming issue that I experienced. I can happily affirm that I'm very pleased with these monitors and recommend them. I would just buy them from...well, not LG.

Feel free to ask questions. Cheers