Dubai: LG Electronics’ new ultra-thin laptop — Gram, as the name implies, is ridiculously light for a full-size laptop and weighs lighter than a MacBook Air.
The 15.6-inch (1920x1080 IPS Display) widescreen device with a 0.26-inch super slim bezel is powered by 2.3GHz dual-core Intel i5 processor with 4GB of RAM and 256GB solid state drive.
The screen could be brighter. It tops out at about 246 nits, so though the device is pleasant to use indoors, the display can’t compete with bright sunlight.
LG cut a few corners to make it highly competitive. It weighs less than one kilo and to put it in perspective, the smaller 13-inch MacBook Air weighs 1.35 kilos. It’s also a super-thin — 0.7 inches thick while closed, only 14.1 inches across and 9 inches deep.
The laptop’s nearly bezel-free display resembles Dell XPS notebooks, and its thin curves resemble Apple’s MacBook Air.
Even though LG skipped aluminium in favour of magnesium alloy, it feels plastic. The lid is too flimsy and it bends when pressure is applied on it. The laptop does not look premium when compared to other ultrabooks available in the market.
The 720p webcam is oddly built into the hinge rather than sitting above the screen, which results in awkward close-ups of your fingers if you need to type during a video call.
The laptop offers a good selection of ports — HDMI port, two USB 3.0 ports, a single USB 2.0 port, Type-C USB (for charging and data transfer), Bluetooth 4.0 and an SD card slot. There’s no wired Ethernet, but an included USB Type-C to Ethernet adapter lets you connect the Gram to wired networks.
The device sports a full-size keyboard with number pad, with adequate travel and decently sized keys. The keys feel fine but it does not feel premium. Layout of the keyboard is standard and the let-down is that it is not backlit. The four by two-and-a-half inch piano-hinge style trackpad works okay but two-finger scrolling can be a little bit unpredictable.
I found the audio surprisingly good coming out from the speakers placed at the edge of the bottom left and right sides. The decision to put speakers on the extreme gives about as good a surround-sound feel as laptops are capable of.
Even though it may be the lightest laptop, the battery is another weak spot for the LG Gram. LG promises up to 7 hours of juice out of the device’s 4,495mAh battery but the Gram’s battery dies in just over three hours, in heavy drain test with full brightness. In video test, the Gram lasted for close to five hours, which is below average. Adding a bigger battery means more weight and LG’s goal is to make it extremely light. This means you need to carry the charger with you, which nearly doubles the weight in your bag.
A better touchpad and keyboard would have made the device a hands-down win, despite the shortcomings of its screen. Besides being an easy travel companion, it has no bloatware preinstalled — just a very small handful of LG applications meant to improve the experience, like a program for blue-light filtering for reading by making it easier on the eyes, LG easy Guide and LG troubleshooting. It is priced at Dh4,399.
Pros
• Ultralight body
• Almost bezel-less display
• Good speakers
• Expensive given the hardware
• Good selection of ports
Cons
• Lid and deck flex
• Short battery life
• Screen is dim in direct sunlight
• webcam in the hinge
•No backlight keyboard