Mine has a 12th Gen i7 – I did not want this as I have other machines for high performance, but I had to choose that processor buy it to get 32GB of RAM. Mine has a 1TB SSD. LG’s genre-bending Gram 17 was one of my favourite laptops of 2020. By squeezing a huge 17in display into a laptop nearly as light as a MacBook Air, LG achieved something special and in a world of identikit 13.3in ultraportables that’s something to be applauded. There turned out to be an acceptable amount of volume (84dB average at 1m from a pink noise source and 87dB peak from a music source at the same distance) and even a reasonable amount of bass, certainly more than the old 2021 model produced. Balance and definition are good, too. I really was genuinely surprised by the quality of the sound that the LG Gram 16 (2022) produces. There was a hardware fault with the camera module out of the box so that never worked for me, hopefully not a common issue and it wasn't a deal breaker for me (at the time - you don't realise how much you miss something until you don't have it).

LG updated the fonts that they’re using for this generation, and the smaller writing is more visually pleasant imo. I’m curious about the performance of the i7-1260P + RTX 2050 version of the Gram 17. That entry-level RTX 2050 should be 2x the performance of the Iris chip if supplied with enough power, and I’d expect LG to implement a superior thermal design on that model which should also benefit the CPU in sustained loads. That’s a topic for another article, though. One of the great things about the LG Gram is that I was able to put Ubuntu on the machine, which I prefer to mac os, for coding. It seems to work well although like a lot of laptops battery life seems worse for linux. That's not the manufacturers fault just less polished drivers etc I guess. But that's pretty universal for all laptops. There aren’t many such laptops out there, designed to bundle a large display in a portable and lightweight format. In fact, the Gram 17 is the lightest 17-inch laptop currently available in stores, at under 3 lbs (1.3 kilos). At the same time, it only offers the performance of a smaller ultrabook, and is in fact outmatched by many of these modern 13 and 14-inch units, mostly because LG use a common internal design between all their Grams, thus the space in this 16-inch chassis is not fully utilized. In other words, that means this Gram 16 is mostly suited for daily tasks and multitasking, but not for serious workloads or for gaming.

A few other aspects worth mentioning here are the fact that this panel doesn’t get very dim at the lowest brightness setting, which could be an inconvenience when using it in a pitch-dark room, and it doesn’t get overly bright either, which could be an issue for outdoor use. So you’ll want to keep this mostly inside. These are some good runtimes for a 12th-gen Core P implementation, and slightly longer than on the Gram 17. The i7 means it runs hotter than my wife's 17" i5 Gram from last year and you do hear the fans from time to time – particularly when LG Glance goes into one of its loops.

There’s a large 80Wh battery inside this LG Gram 17, which is fair-sized for this sort of laptop. Of course, LG could have even included an even bigger battery in this 17-inch chassis, but instead chose a consistent internal design between the different Gram models. A larger 90Wh battery is available with the i7+RTX 2050 Gram 17 Pro models. The screen is very clear – I can have loads of lines of code showing at any one time which is invaluable. I rarely have it at anywhere near full brightness (it still looks BRIGHT as contrast is good). Consequently, per charge, I get 5-6 hours of use (a day's work for me) and I only ever charge the battery to 80%. It also supports IR with Hello and is flanked by some decent microphones. Be careful that the camera might be disabled by default, and you’ll need to press Fn + F4 to deactivate Secure Mode for it to work (or enable it in the control app). Battery life Indeed, the LG Gram 16 is so good that it has taken over as my new favourite ultralight big-screened laptop. If that extra inch of screen real estate is important to you, however, there’s still no beating the 17in model. I’ve already reviewed the 2022-generation of the LG Gram 17 in a previous article, and in this one, I’ll mostly focus on how the slightly smaller Gram 16 compares to the 17-inch model and how LG were able to improve this notebook significantly in comparison to the previous-generation Gram 16 reviewed in the past.This design particularity is the reason thermals are not significantly improved when placing the laptop on a raiser stand, as it would if the fan would have been allowed unrestrained air access through the intake grill. The 2021 has now been released and the latest model takes that recipe and refines it. It’s still the lightest 17in laptop you can buy and it’s an even more impressive machine than last year’s model. In fact, the only threat to its lightweight laptop crown comes from the new LG Gram 16, which is cheaper, even lighter and has a display that’s almost as big.

Various other discounts might apply at the time you’re reading the article, so follow this link for updated prices and configurations in your region. Final thoughts- LG Gram 16 Graphics are handled by the Iris Xe integrated iGPU, which is dependent on enough power to run at its full potential. In this implementation, it runs at between 70-90% of its potential. I’ll explain why further down. Here’s what we got in terms of battery life, with the screen’s brightness set at around 120 nits (~60 brightness). There’s a high-resolution 16-inch 16:10 screen on the LG Gram 16, with narrow side bezels and an average chin and forehead. For the 2022 models, LG also implement a matte-finished display, with a good-quality IPS panel.For biometrics, there’s no longer a figner-sensor integrated within the power button with this 2022 Gram 17 generation, as on the previous models, which instead has been replaced by an IR-capable camera. Having both would have been nice. Screen The Normal profile cuts the fan to around 31-32 dBA and 12-17W of sustained power. The CPU runs cooler in this mode, fluctuating between 70 and 85 degrees Celsius. The performance takes a dip, though, around 20-25% lower than on High. The major updates of this generation are a noticeable bump in overall performance with the 12th-gen Intel Core P hardware on the 2022 models, the implementation of a matte display instead of the glossy options of the past, the addition of some louder and overall punchier speakers, as well as few other minor refinements. Here’s what we got on our unit, compared to the Gram 17, previous-gen Gram 16, and a few other portable models. Low settings

I note comments asking why this machine exists – for me it fits one part of my laptop requirements – lightness with a big screen and an easy carry. The LG Gram 17 gets a basic thermal module with a single fan and a short heatpipe, much like all the other past Gram.With no external speaker grilles, I wasn’t expecting great things from the Gram 16’s 2 x 1.5W sound system, despite the DTS:X Ultra certification, but I was pleasantly surprised with that, too. The keyboard layout is a bit different than what LG offers on their Gram 16, with an extra column of keys in the NumPad section and different arrows. Furthermore, LG updated the fonts that they’re using for this generation, and the smaller writing is more visually pleasant imo. It’s still ludicrously light and portable for a 17in laptop, but this year’s version has better battery life, improved connectivity and faster performance. If you hanker after something that works just as well as a mobile workhorse as it does a desktop replacement, it’s pretty much the perfect solution. Gaming laptops have been evolving very well to enable the same level of productivity to replace desktop PCs when plugged in on a desk, but when it comes to laptops meant for mobility, the vast majority of them just fall short of their price tag. CineBench R23: CPU 8807 cb (best run), CPU 7829 (10 min loop test), CPU Single Core 1530 CB (best run);