LG Gram Laptops?

[paulyron]

What are your experience with these LG gram laptops?  Seems to be the lightest laptops out there in terms of weight.  I seen how a 17' LG Gram laptop look at costco and even though it is a big screen, it weighs practically less than 3 pounds.  Besides the lowest weight, is there a reason people buy these laptops?  I see the laptop battery life is one of the best as well right.  So weight and the best battery life for windows laptops?

 

 

What I do notice is the processors seem to be i5-1420p or i7-1260p or it is one of those strange i5-1135g7 or i8-1195G7.  So these are ultrabook i5 and i7 processors?  So they are much worst than say an i5-12500h or 17-12700h or amd 5 or amd 7 H series right?  But they are still much slower than an amd ryzen u series?  So if are planning to do intensive things on it, are these LG gram laptops still good or not?

 

 

I notice almost all of them have the basic intel integrated xe graphics card and there is no nvidia graphics card.  So do most people find this not good?  I saw reviews where people say it is ridiculous to pay $1500 for a laptop and it doesn't even have a disgrete gpu.  Now even if you don't play games, would you say this is pretty overpriced for a laptop with no gpu?  For example if you want 32gb ram and 1tb ssd, it will cost you at least $1800 + tax.  

 

 

Also I notice all LG Grams ram are soldered.  So most laptops are 16gb ram.  Do most people find this limiting since that should be the minimum ram you need these days?  8gb isn't enough anymore for most users.  But if you want 32gb, not having the ability to do so is limited right?

 

 

Would you say a dell xps 15 9520 is superior to these lg gram laptops even if you pay several hundred more since you can upgrade the ram?  I heard the processor isn't even that good and this laptop seem to be more of an ultrabook for long battery and gimmicky because of the weight.  It seems these are perfect for people who web browse and use excel and use not too much chrome and travel?  If you use it for anything that might need graphics card, then this is not a good machine?  Are LG grams compared to the xps or macbook or lenovo laptops?  This isn't a creator or gaming laptop right?  Anyone own a LG gram can offer insight to it?  

 

 

 

[igormp]

I have a 10th gen 14" Gram, and I love it. It came with 8gb, but I upgraded to 32gb because I like to eat ram for lunch, and yes, I mostly got it due to its weight and battery life. Fwiw, I run linux on it, not windows.

 

3 minutes ago, paulyron said:

What I do notice is the processors seem to be i5-1420p or i7-1260p or it is one of those strange i5-1135g7 or i8-1195G7.  So these are ultrabook i5 and i7 processors?  So they are much worst than say an i5-12500h or 17-12700h or amd 5 or amd 7 H series right?  But they are still much slower than an amd ryzen u series?  So if are planning to do intensive things on it, are these LG gram laptops still good or not?

I have the 10th gen i5 version, which is slower than even other 10th gen i5 laptops due to its lower TDP limits. Yes, if you plan to do anything intensive it'll take a while, but for what I do is mostly fine (web browsing, coding and accessing other powerful machines remotely).

4 minutes ago, paulyron said:

I notice almost all of them have the basic intel integrated xe graphics card and there is no nvidia graphics card.  So do most people find this not good?  I saw reviews where people say it is ridiculous to pay $1500 for a laptop and it doesn't even have a disgrete gpu.  Now even if you don't play games, would you say this is pretty overpriced for a laptop with no gpu?  For example if you want 32gb ram and 1tb ssd, it will cost you at least $1800 + tax.  

Sadly the 12th gen models aren't available in my country, and the 11th gen one is just available at 16" (I didn't want to go past the 14" range). I'd be willing to pay up to 2k usd for one, and I prefer it not to have a GPU. It's useless for me, would only weight more and reduce the battery life. But for each their own, one should know their needs and how much they're willing to pay for it.

5 minutes ago, paulyron said:

Also I notice all LG Grams ram are soldered.  So most laptops are 16gb ram.  Do most people find this limiting since that should be the minimum ram you need these days?  8gb isn't enough anymore for most users.  But if you want 32gb, not having the ability to do so is limited right?

Mine was the last upgradeable model iirc, but if I were to buy the 12th gen one I'd go straight with a 32gb model because I know what I need.

 

6 minutes ago, paulyron said:

Would you say a dell xps 15 9520 is superior to these lg gram laptops even if you pay several hundred more since you can upgrade the ram?  I heard the processor isn't even that good and this laptop seem to be more of an ultrabook for long battery and gimmicky because of the weight.

I don't know about the 15" model because I don't care about it, but the 13" model also has soldered ram.

I almost went with the 11th gen XPS 13 (again, 12th gen model wasn't available here), but its wifi card didn't play well with linux, and there was only a 16gb model available, and I do need 32gb, so I gave up on it and went for the gram, even though its CPU was slower.

 

8 minutes ago, paulyron said:

t seems these are perfect for people who web browse and use excel and use not too much chrome and travel? 

Yes, it's the perfect travel laptop, I can't even feel it in my backpack and can carry it around with ease. 

8 minutes ago, paulyron said:

If you use it for anything that might need graphics card, then this is not a good machine?

Yes, it'll suck. If you need a dedicated graphics card, then buy a device with a dedicated graphics card, this should be obvious.

 

9 minutes ago, paulyron said:

Are LG grams compared to the xps or macbook or lenovo laptops?

You can compare it to a XPS 13, Carbon X1, HP Spectre, Zenbook 13, Macbook Air (even though the current M1 is a beast of its own, as long as MacOS is ok for you). It competes with other really lightweight, long-lasting battery ultrabooks.

 

10 minutes ago, paulyron said:

This isn't a creator or gaming laptop right?

No.

 

10 minutes ago, paulyron said:

Anyone own a LG gram can offer insight to it?

Guess I just did 

[paulyron]

Thanks for that very long explanation with answering those questions.  But are there people that use their LG gram as their main laptop such as whether by itself or like a desktop replacement where connected to 1 or 2 external monitors?  I assume yes right?  But it is still more so a travel laptpo?

 

 

I did not know the older generation LG gram you could still upgrade the ram yourself.  So after that, no LG grams are allowed to upgrade the ram because it is soldered.  Every LG gram i see online says soldered ram.   But you would say this is a huge negative for many people right if they want to use it for years to come?  I mean 16gb seems to be the norm nowadays and since well if you use 8gb opening several chrome tabs you can use up to that now.  Any reason why more laptops are not preconfigured with 32gb ram or why they have to solder the ram?  It is like all LG grams are soldered ram and almost all lenovo laptops are are as well.

 

 

But is the default integrated intel xe graphics card still decent for some things though if it needs graphics?  I didn't know having a gpu would add much weight to it.  You said with the gpu, you are not only paying more, but you get less battery.  But... couldn't you have the gpu like a 3050 or 3050ti or even 3060 and just turn it off and use the default intel integrated gpu?  Would the battery be the same though if you turn it off or not use it?  Or having a gpu in the computer will always make the battery worst even if you turn it off or it isn't in use?

[igormp]

Just now, paulyron said:

But are there people that use their LG gram as their main laptop such as whether by itself or like a desktop replacement where connected to 1 or 2 external monitors?  I assume yes right?

Yes, there are. I have a friend who is currently during her med bachelors and uses it as her only device, but she doesn't use external monitors or anything like that. It shouldn't be a problem to have it docked and use it with external monitors though, as long as the CPU fits your needs, it still has USB-C and an HDMI port after all.

 

2 minutes ago, paulyron said:

But you would say this is a huge negative for many people right if they want to use it for years to come?

I don't see many people upgrading their laptops though, specially such a premium device. If you know that you need more ram, just buy that amount of ram from the beginning.

3 minutes ago, paulyron said:

I mean 16gb seems to be the norm nowadays and since well if you use 8gb opening several chrome tabs you can use up to that now.

Many people are just fine with 8gb, since all they do is lightweight browsing.

3 minutes ago, paulyron said:

Any reason why more laptops are not preconfigured with 32gb ram

Most people don't need it.

 

3 minutes ago, paulyron said:

why they have to solder the ram?

Depends on the model, some are to become thinner (dimm slots take quite some space), some others are due to efficiency/speed (soldered ram is both faster and consumes less power).

 

4 minutes ago, paulyron said:

It is like all LG grams are soldered ram and almost all lenovo laptops are are as well.

Since those are meant to be ultra thin, every centimeter that you can save is a plus.

 

4 minutes ago, paulyron said:

But is the default integrated intel xe graphics card still decent for some things though if it needs graphics?

Like what? It should handle browsing and video playback just fine. Do you mean games? Some indie or lightweight games should be doable, but don't plan on doing AAA games or anything moderately intensive.

5 minutes ago, paulyron said:

I didn't know having a gpu would add much weight to it.

Remember that it's not only the GPU, you need to add cooling for it and the power delivery circuitry, along with the extra space taken on the motherboard. It's not really much, but I doubt you'd be able to cram one in a 990g laptop.

6 minutes ago, paulyron said:

But... couldn't you have the gpu like a 3050 or 3050ti or even 3060 and just turn it off and use the default intel integrated gpu?  Would the battery be the same though if you turn it off or not use it?  Or having a gpu in the computer will always make the battery worst even if you turn it off or it isn't in use?

1- I have no use for a GPU in a laptop, so I don't want one.

2- Even if the power consumption is small with it turned off, it's still silicon on your device that has to be kept at standby so you can turn it back on if needed, so it still sips some power.

[Imbadatnames]

Tbh I’ve never seen the need to buy a MacBook wannabe when the MacBook exists… same goes for the XPS

[igormp]

1 hour ago, Imbadatnames said:

Tbh I’ve never seen the need to buy a MacBook wannabe when the MacBook exists… same goes for the XPS

I'd use a macbook in a heartbeat if it could run linux flawlessly, but that's not the case, and MacOS doesn't fit my workflow properly, and that's also the reason many people go for windows laptops.

[Imbadatnames]

6 hours ago, igormp said:

I'd use a macbook in a heartbeat if it could run linux flawlessly, but that's not the case, and MacOS doesn't fit my workflow properly, and that's also the reason many people go for windows laptops.

Can always get a used Intel one which can just run Linux. Failing that you can run Linux through parallels on Apple silicon. Also if you’re wanting to code you can use most Linux tools natively on MacOS anyway as MacOS is Unix based 

[igormp]

17 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

Can always get a used Intel one which can just run Linux.

Then I'm better off with my gram. Similar build quality (I'd argue that it's even better) and better performance. I see no reason to go for a macbook if not for the M1/M2.

18 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

Failing that you can run Linux through parallels on Apple silicon.

Poor solution and messy workflow IMO.

18 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

Also if you’re wanting to code you can use most Linux tools natively on MacOS anyway as MacOS is Unix based 

Most but not all. Anyway, my use case doesn't really fit well with MacOS as I said before, I don't see why are you trying to explain this to me when you don't even know what I do lol

[Imbadatnames]

8 minutes ago, igormp said:

Then I'm better off with my gram. Similar build quality (I'd argue that it's even better) and better performance. I see no reason to go for a macbook if not for the M1/M2.

Beinf apple to swap between all 3 major OS’ isn’t a plus?

8 minutes ago, igormp said:

Poor solution and messy workflow IMO.

It’s literally the same as running it from boot. It has its own virtual desktop

8 minutes ago, igormp said:

Most but not all. Anyway, my use case doesn't really fit well with MacOS as I said before, I don't see why are you trying to explain this to me when you don't even know what I do lol

Saying it can’t run Linux “flawlessly” when it’s not really that far off isn’t really truthful. It can run Linux with fewer bugs than a surface running windows. 

[igormp]

14 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

Beinf apple to swap between all 3 major OS’ isn’t a plus?

I didn't get what you mean here, is it about being able to run either windows, linux or macos? If so, no, that's useless for me, I don't use windows nor macos. My gram has more ram than any intel mbp 13, is more lightweight, has better battery and the CPU should be on par.

15 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

It’s literally the same as running it from boot. It has its own virtual desktop

It's not, you won't have hardware acceleration and passing through some devices is a pain, not to say about the extra ram usage.

15 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

Saying it can’t run Linux “flawlessly” when it’s not really that far off isn’t really truthful.

Look at asahi, it's not ready yet and lacks many features.

17 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

It can run Linux with fewer bugs than a surface running windows. 

Not yet. Again, check it out: https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Feature-Support

 

Anyhow, you are still trying to discuss my needs, that sounds dumb. Why not try to discuss my other point that's actually relevant to other users?

7 hours ago, igormp said:

and MacOS doesn't fit my workflow properly, and that's also the reason many people go for windows laptops.

If someone has to work with software that only runs on windows, then it's not even possible to fathom a macbook, specially the M1 ones.