EASY SETUP] - You can easily set up the +view monitor with a USB Type-C Thunderbolt connection. Even better, the USB Type-C ports are on both sides and no additional power is required. 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 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.

This change of mind return policy is in addition to, and does not affect your rights under the Australian Consumer Law including any rights you may have in respect of faulty items. To return faulty items see our Returning Faulty Items policy. 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. The Keyboard is not ISO standard - yes the keys are layed out for a UK audience but instead of the L shaped Enter Key they have the american style horizontal "Enter" and the "#"/"~" key is moved above "Enter". As a programmer this still throws me from time to time and it baffles me that they'd have an American enter key but not an American "Left SHIFT". So it's a half US and half UK layout where we have a UK key placements as well as "Left SHIFT" and "\" living next to one another (as the Queen intended) but we have an American "ENTER" key with the "#" key moved up... WEIRD. 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).

For Videoconferencing

The 2020 LG Gram 17 was a great laptop but the 2021 model is even better. LG has made small improvements everywhere you look while doing nothing to undermine the attraction of the original. As far as the competition goes, there’s the Gram 17 already mentioned, and the Acer Swift Edge, another lightweight 16-inch laptop. That’s built on AMD Ryzen U hardware, which I know some of you will love, but it’s also a low-power design with minimalist cooling, and it gets a 4K OLED screen and a 56 Wh battery. You’ll find all about it in our review. BTW, there’s also an OLED available in the updated 2023 LG Gram, though. This design particularity is the reason thermals are not significantly improved when placing the laptop on a raiser stand, as I believe they would if the fan would have been allowed unrestrained air access through the intake grill.

For storage, LG opted for a premium-tier PCIe gen4 Samsung PM9A1 drive here. There are two M.2 2280 slots inside. 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. Compared to the previous-generation Gram built on an 11th-gen Core i7-1165G7 processor, this 2022 model is a major step up in CPU performance, and roughly on par in GPU capabilities. The faster CPU makes a difference both with daily use and multitasking, but also with occasional intensive loads. On the regular Gram 17, fresh air comes inside through the bottom of the laptop, through the punctured intake grill. However, that intake grill is only partially open over the CPU and is covered over the fan and the heatpipe, in an effort to channel the air over the CPU, into the fan, and then out through the exhaust grill.

Hence, the LG Gram 16 is not for everyone, especially when you also factor in the price that you’re paying for it. But that’s where things get interesting. At MSRP prices, the slightly larger LG Gram 17 makes more sense to me. If you’re going for this sort of large-screen laptop for daily use, why not get the largest possible display, especially when the Gram 17 also offers a brighter panel and a full keyboard, plus a minor bump in performance based on our experience with the two units? 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. W (~9+ h of use) – 1080p fullscreen video on Youtube in Edge, Optimal + Balanced Mode, screen at 60%, Wi-Fi ON; The body of the Gram 16 is made from magnesium while the lid is plastic. That’s great for weight reduction but not so great for resistance to twisting. Grab the sides and apply serious torque and the base will flex and creak while the lid warps alarmingly. Of course, while reviewers do things like this, owners generally do not. There’s also a noticeable amount of flex when you press the middle of the keyboard.

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. Aside from this small niggle, the display measures up incredibly well. If you’re using the laptop for professional-level photo editing, especially if you’re working in sRGB content, you’ll still want to break open the calibrator. However, out of the box and within the P3 colour space, performance is highly respectable. A peak brightness of 350cd/m2, a contrast ratio of 1,514:1, an average Delta E colour accuracy of 0.67 and a total colour volume of 101.6% DCI-P3 are all excellent figures. Our sample also came poorly calibrated, with a skewed Gamma and White Point. It ended up OK in terms of uniformity once calibrated, with only variations in luminosity in the corners. I did notice a little bit of light bleeding in the top-right corner on this unit, while the Gram 17 panel experienced none, despite being a little brighter. Compared to the previous generation Gram 17, the 2022 variant now offers a significant bump in performance with the adoption of 12th-gen Core P platforms over the 11t-gen Core Us of the past, a matte display that is replacing the glossy non-touch panels used before, louder speakers, and a few other minor refinements and updates.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%. In all fairness, this 2022 variant is significantly faster in multitasking and heavier CPU loads than the previous generation, so it can run Photoshop for photo editing or some programming software fairly well. Just don’t expect this to match the capabilities of higher-power ultraportable laptops. LG pairs the laptop with a compact and lightweight 65W charger that plugs in via USB-C. It’s a dual-piece design with long cables. A full recharge takes a little over 2 hours.