Customer Ratings & Reviews

Its a 2019 model and I had it for few days. Am impressed with its features and functionality and is good value for your money. My reviews are based on my experience with 2018 and 2017 laptop/surface book that I own which are in similar price range. This can definitely compete with Microsoft and Apple laptops in terms of spec and performance but comes at a lower price tag. I consider this as a mid-range laptop and good for day to day use, play some games and watch some 4k videos. Battery Life (72Wh): Its 4 cell lithium ion built in battery pack. The spec says 20.5 hrs. But I did some tests and played some PC games, watched videos, browsed internet and the battery lasted for about 13 hrs with brightness and contrast levels set to recommended power management settings Weight: Lightweight (2.1 pounds) and you can literally hold it with two fingers. Overall dimensions 12.0 x 8.3 x 0.6 inches Screen (13.3"): Played Netflix 4K videos and it delivered life like picture quality. It has a webcam (HD) on the top bezel that I didn’t test it yet. Pretty responsive touch screen and amazing resolution (1920x1080). No complaints at all on the display for gaming or videos needs. It supports four finger multi touch gestures Memory: DDR4 dual channel memory (8GB DDR4 2400MHz - 4 GB x 1 (On Board) - 4 GB x 1). One is soldered on to the board and one is upgradable. This is descent enough RAM for day to day use (multitasking) and might fall short for extreme gaming needs. Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics 620 (8th generation with higher clock speeds compared to its processor with noticeable performance improvement for gamers) are usually found in i5 and i7 core processors. This is a 2017 released graphics processor and is a mid-range graphics processor that satisfies most of the day to day applications. Processor: 8th Gen Intel Core i5 processor (Intel Core i5-8265U 1.60GHz/3.90GHz). It’s a mid-range laptop processor released in Q2, 2018. It offers a higher maximal clock speed (turbo boost) frequency of 3.9 GHz and a little better compared to its predecessor (3.4 GHz). It’s a latest generation processor and amazingly fast. Played couple PC games (Apex Legend and Rainbow Six Siege) and saw a little lag but is acceptable for mid-range laptops . I overclocked the CPU and memory by multitasking (video, browsing, ports powering accessories) and didn't' see it struggle, was impressed by its performance. I could hear the fan running at its max speed to keep the PC cool. Will stress test it the next couple days to see how it performs. Body: Metal body (magnesium alloy) has a good feel to it and feels tough. Shouldn't have problems with durability and spec says military grade durability (i.e. passed military grade tests levels on shock, low pressure, temperature, dust, vibration and salt fog). I specifically like the color its sliver with grey tint on it - dark silver ? Keyboard: Its back-lit and has 3 settings - off, level 1 and level 2. Fingerprint logon: This is the best feature by far on this laptop and logging on is a breeze and password free (supports windows hello feature - biometric login)- the power bottom has a finger print reader to unlock the PC, apps and websites. Added a picture to this review Ports: 2 USB ports 3.0 ports, 1 HDMI, 1 USB C(thunderbolt 3!) and mini SD card slot Few things I still feel could be improved - The fan is a little loud (but less louder than the ones I currently own), feel the technology is out there and it can addressed in the new generation laptops but it didn’t get hot though. Overall this is a great laptop for day to day use with good multitasking capability and am impressed with its battery life. It can last for the entire day on a single charge. The sound system was amazing , great DTS (multi-channel sound) experience with Bose Headset. This laptop comes with a 256 GB SSD hard drive which is pretty much industry standard now. Super-fast boot-up and no lag in accessing files and folders on the system. Supports bluetooth 5.0 which is pretty much the latest version on bluetooth technology. It has a ultra-small (compared to the previous laptops I owned) bezel and barely noticeable. Overall 5/5 rating for the value it delivers for a lower price tag when compared to similar laptops that can easily cost another $250-$300 more.

For laptops, portability and screen size often take precedent before the internal hardware is considered. The LG Gram 13 inch attempts to tackle both, offering both performance and portability in a sleek well designed package. Clocking in at roughly two pounds, and combined with a quad core i5-8265U, a 256 GB SSD and 8 GB DDR4-2400 MHz, the LG Gram presents a fabulous opportunity to get the performance you desire without sacrificing portability. In addition, the LG gram is powered by a spacious 70Wh battery that should provide ample amounts of power on a single charge! Once unboxed, the LG Gram is sure to impress. Physically, the LG Gram is quite sturdy for its size. It is extremely light; no doubt the LG Gram would be perfect for travel. In addition, the laptop has a nice brushed feel to it. It is smooth, yet somewhat rugged. I was also quite impressed with the silver color as it is darker in person as opposed to the stock photos online. As for the keyboard, everything should be quite familiar. There are various function keys at the top, such as adjusting screen brightness or disabling the touchpad. You can also access the LG control center (FN + F1) for even more settings. In addition, the LED keyboard backlight has two different modes: low and high. Between low and high, the increase in backlight is minimal but nonetheless gets the job done. On the left side of the unit, you will note the charge port, an HDMI port, 1 USB 3.1 Type-A, and one USB 3.1 Type-C port. On the right side, you will note the security lock, 1 USB 3.1 Type-A, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a micro SD card slot. Also, LG included a USB Type-C to RJ-45 adapter so you can use a wired internet connection. Despite its small size, there are plenty of port options available. In addition to the physical aspects, I was quite impressed with the 13 inch IPS display. Even at 1080p, the colors are absolutely vibrant and presents strong contrast throughout. Ironically, our other laptops look washed out in comparison. By default, the computer is set to scale the display at 150%. I did not have any trouble reading text, looking at pictures, or watching video. As for size, I felt that 13 inches is the perfect size as it is big enough for daily use, yet small and compact enough that it does not feel bulky. Furthermore, the LED backlight is extremely bright, especially in a dark room or environment. Personally, this is the brightest screen I have used. Overall, everyone will be pleased with the display quality. As for performance, the LG Gram is extremely fast out of the box. As one would expect, one of the main reasons for this speed is the included 256 GB SSD, which is listed as a Samsung MZNLN256HAJQ that is a SATA drive connected via the M.2 form factor. The drive easily saturates the SATA 3 interface. I decided to run Crystal Mark 6.0.2 and the results are quite impressive: Sequential Read: 549.459 MB/s & Sequential Write: 516.022 MB/s Random Read 4K QD=32: 249.451 MB/s & Random Write 4K QD=32: 224.102 MB/s Random Read 4K QD=1: 12.737 MB/s & Random Write 4K QD=1: 49.693 MB/s Furthermore, I also ran two manual transfers from my SanDisk Extreme 500GB external SSD over USB 3.1 Type-C. For the first test, I copied one file that was 28.3 GB. My second test was one more indicative of the drive’s 4k performance. I copied one large 27.9 GB folder that is comprised of 6,147 files scattered through an additional 1,141 subfolders. At the start of the first transfer, I was able to spike up to 480 MB/s before it held consistently at 300-310 MB/s. The 28.3 GB file finished after 1 Minute and 33 Seconds! The second test was naturally slower and not as consistent, but nonetheless still extremely fast. After starting off slowly, the transfer shot up to almost 300 MB/s and then bounced around between 170 MB/s - 210 MB/s, with occasional spikes up to 245 MB/s or higher. The transfer ended at 2 Minutes and 32 seconds. Overall, the performance of the SSD should be more than enough for most users. Additionally, I would like to mention that the LG Gram can be upgraded to a larger capacity drive, however, this is only recommended if you are comfortable with upgrading the laptop or have done it before. Naturally, this not necessary and is completely optional. In addition to the SSD, I wanted to test the i5-8265U to see how the CPU performs when stressed to its full potential. For a multithreaded test, I used Handbrake 1.2.2 to encode a 28.3GB .M2TS movie file to MP4. I ran the test using the very fast 1080p preset, but changed the frame rate to 24 fps to match the source. The audio was set to match its source. For comparison, I ran the same test on my HP X360 Envy that is powered by the Ryzen 2500U since they are fairly close in specifications. Both chips are quad cores with eight threads and have a TDP rating of 15 watts. I5-8265U – 47 Minutes 4 seconds (46.8 FPS) Ryzen 2500U – 42 Minutes 45 seconds (51.6 FPS) Both CPUs perform similarly, though the Ryzen 2500U edges out slightly for several reasons. First, the Ryzen was able to sustain a turbo frequency of 2.9 GHz, while the i5-8265U was running at 2.0 GHz. Second, the HP is a bigger laptop (15 inches) and ran cooler due to a larger fan. Since the LG is a smaller laptop with a smaller fan, the i5 had to throttle more aggressively. However, keep in mind that encoding video is well beyond what this laptop is designed for. Overall, the CPU performs exceptionally well. In addition to the multithreaded test, I ran a single thread test by converting a 24 minute WAV file to MP3 using MusicBee 2.4. The LAME encoder was set to a constant bit rate of 320 Kbps. The quality algorithm was set to 0 for the highest quality setting by using the –q switch. I also set MusicBee to run the encode on one thread. I5-8265U – 1 Minute and 44 Seconds Ryzen 2500U- 2 Minutes and 6 Seconds Unlike the multithreaded test, the i5-8265U was able to stretch its legs a bit and hold a turbo frequency of 3.8 GHz since the temperature and load was low. Using HW Monitor, I noted the temperature around 50-55 degrees Celsius which is well within a respectable range. Overall, I believe the i5-8565U is more than enough to handle everything you throw at it. In addition to performance, the battery is another area of importance. For my test, I left the power options alone and disabled all of the unnecessary startup items as well as all of the non-Microsoft services. With a fully charged battery, I ran a 28.3 GB .M2TS movie using VLC player. For the whole 90 minutes, I ran the screen at full brightness as well as the keyboard’s LED on its highest setting. After the movie, there was 83% battery left. I then proceeded to browse a couple of websites for about an hour and noticed that the battery had dropped to roughly 77%. I also want to mention that by default Windows 10 has the fast startup enabled in the power options. This setting also affects shutdown, as it does not shut the computer completely down but rather forces it to an extremely low power state that appears to be off (you will notice that your uptime counter in task manager does not reset after you turn it back on). However, I was able to note that after not using the laptop for 9 days while in this low power state, the battery still had 34% left of its charge remaining when I did turn it back on. I must absolutely stress that your battery results will differ than what I have observed here, though hopefully this can give you an idea of what to expect. Depending on your usage, you may even exceed these results. Also, I want to stress that you should watch your CPU/RAM usage as some services and background processes sometimes hog resources, which will have a detrimental effect on battery life. While LG claims that the battery can last 20.5 hours, I can't fully say that this is true for every charge, but it does seem that as long as your usage is within reason, it is possible you could see a single charge last that long. Overall, the battery performs exceptionally and it is definitely the longest lasting battery I have personally used. In conclusion, the LG Gram is the perfect laptop for those who want strong performance without sacrificing portability. At two pounds, it is extremely lightweight and portable. In addition, the 13 inch IPS display is one of the brightest screens that I have used. The color was incredibly vibrant and text was sharp and easy to read. Internally, the i5-8265U, 8 GB DDR4, and the 256 GB Samsung SSD performs with blazing speed. As for drawbacks, some might be disappointed with the initial size of the SSD or that half of its RAM is soldered down to the motherboard. However, these issues are minor enough that should not bother most users. As for affordability, the LG Gram sits at an upper price point. While there might be cheaper options, the LG Gram easily provides what it was designed to do. With exceptional battery life and an attractive design, the LG Gram comes highly recommended provided that it is well within your budget.

The LG Gram 13 touch-screen laptop is yet another contender for the smallest, lightest laptop, in an already crowded field with the likes of Dell XPS 13, Microsoft Surface and Lenovo Yoga models, many of which are 2-in-1 models. Compared to my XPS 13 2-in-1, the Gram is just about 9 oz lighter but about a half inch longer, front to back. Thickness is identical. The Dell has a more solid feel over the Gram. At just over 2 pounds, the magnesium-alloy frame gives the laptop a solid feel. The keyboard has a nice feel. The key size and spacing are more than adequate for my fat fingers. The keyboard is backlit, however, once windows loads, the default is off, so you need to press the function (Fn) key and F8 to turn it on and cycle though the brightness levels. The track pad works well and recognizes taps easily. It also has multi-finger gestures which can be programed to your liking. The battery in my unit arrived uncharged and needed charged out of the box. I was disappointed when I saw the power supply has a barrel plug on it rather than USB-C. Charging the laptop via the USB-C port is also possible with PD chargers of the appropriate size. I would have rather the laptop had 2 USB-C ports and a matching charger. The laptop took approximately 3 hours to charge to a full charge. The battery is rated for 20 hours which I imagine was obtained with the unit on battery saver. I wouldn’t expect to achieve 20 hours with regular full-power usage, however, it will provide ample power to get you through the better part of a day or cross-country flight. The 1920x1080 IPS touch-screen display is bright and clear with a wide viewing angle. This is not a 2 in 1 laptop however and the screen does not flip back to convert the laptop into tablet mode. The screen is glossy/reflective and difficult to view in bright lighting, especially if the light is behind you. Videos play smoothly at full screen and look great. While the hinge seems solid, the screen does wiggle when typing. I’m not a fan of touch screens, mostly because I don’t like to see the fingerprints. The screen does give when you touch it but it does not require enough force to actually move the hinge. The laptop has two USB-3 ports, one on each side and one USB-C on the left side along with an HDMI port. You can attach external monitors using either HDMI or the USB-c ports. There is no RJ45 ethernet port on the laptop, but it does ship with a USB-C dongle if you need a hard wired ethernet connection. There is a micro SD slot on the right side for downloading photos or video or using for additional storage as the built in M.2 2280 SD Hard Drive is only 256 GB. There are two small bottom-firing speakers on the laptop that are adequate for system sounds and maybe a YouTube video but the DTS Headphone: X jack is supposed to support 11.1 surround sound on movies and games that are encoded with the technology. You can hear examples of content at https://dts.com/headphonex# There is also a DTS app where you can configure the sound. Connecting headphones via the Bluetooth 5.0 interface provides great sound however, to take advantage of the DTS, headphones must be plugged into the 3.5mm jack. There is a fingerprint sensor located in the power switch which once set up works well. I did have a little difficulty with the setup and proper finger placement, but I have rough fingertips which may have been some of the problem. It does not appear that Windows Hello is able to use face recognition on this model as it is not an available option in the setup. The Gram has an 8th generation I5 chip rated at 1.6 GHz with turbo boost to 3.9 GHz. I was able to use Photoshop with no problem, however, Adobe Premier struggled with a 30 second hd video. I had no trouble with any of the Microsoft Office applications, which opened quickly. Web browsers opened pages quickly and multiple tabs posed no problems. The Gram has 8GB of high-speed ram which should be enough for everyday applications. According to the specifications there is 4 GB soldered to the main board and a 4GB module that seems to be able to be upgraded. Overall, the LG Gram 13-inch laptop is an extremely light weight device that is more than capable of handling your day to day needs. Battery life is the best I’ve seen and if your tasks can be done in low power mode, the battery will last pretty close to the rated 20-hour mark as advertised. The LG Gram is the perfect laptop for back to school. Price wise, it comes in at the middle of the pack. If you can get it on sale, you get a really nice laptop for less than a grand. I am disappointed they didn’t make it a 2-in-1 where the display folds completely back for tablet mode and allow pen usage. With so much competition in the field, it is important to weigh all your needs when purchasing any computer. I would recommend the LG Gram to my friends and family.

The LG gram laptop is a powerhouse for its size and I have been very pleased with my experience so far. First of all, the battery is excellent and it was only down to about 50% in 4 hours with heavy use. It claims to go much longer than 8 hours, but I suspect it would last at least 10 to 12 hours under normal to heavy use which is still very impressive. The laptop is quiet and I could not hear it running at all. The screen resolution is excellent and the sound quality was fine, but not impressive so I wouldn’t recommend this laptop for music listening purposes. For its small size (13.3”) the keyboard was amply large enough for comfortable typing and had a typical feel to it when pressing the keys, so I was pleased about that. Another one of my favorite features of this laptop was the weight. It was surprising light at only 2.12 lbs and weight has been a major complaint of mine when traveling with laptops. There is no CD/DVD drive but it does have a Type-C port. I don’t see why I would need a CD/DVD drive, but if I did I could buy an external drive that connects with a Type-C interface on the laptop for about $25. Other ports beside the Type-C port are a full-sized HDMI port, a microSD card port, and two full-sized USB ports. It has a smallish hard drive at 256GB and that should be plenty for most people but definitely not for storing your lifetime supply of digital photos. However, that’s what cloud storage and backup drives are for! In fact, since it has a port for microSD cards, you could easily keep a 400GB storage card in the port to greatly increase your storage space. Another way to increase storage space would be to delete most of the bloatware that come installed on the laptop. With an excessive 31GB of installed software, I will definitely be deleting the excess. Overall, I would recommend this laptop as an excellent choice among the smaller laptops available.

This laptop is extremely lightweight with a small form factor and an excellent battery life. It is lighter than some tablets but still has a comfortable keyboard that allows one to literally work in their lap - something not easily accomplished with a tablet keyboard. Due to the small, lightweight, and thin design, it can easily go into many different types of bags. I look forward to flying with this and carrying it through airports instead of my previous laptop that weighed multiple pounds more than this one. Visually, the looks are appealing. I love the color and design. It has a nice, dark finish which does not create a glare. The keyboard is backlit for working in low light. A responsive fingerprint sensor is integrated into the power button which makes logging in a breeze. The touchpad is massive and works well. The only thing it lacks is a scroll section on the margin. Instead, they have a two-finger scroll function which takes some getting used to. With a solid state drive, battery life is good - over 10 hours, sound levels are reduced, and the risk of the drive crashing due to bumps or drops is eliminated. LG's choice of ports is excellent. They have two USB 3.0 ports and one each of USB 3.1, HDMI, headphones, and a microSD slot. Lastly for the positives, the touchscreen works well. It is so nice sometimes to be able to touch the item instead of tracking around with the touchpad. For the negative, there are a few features that could be improved. It would be nice to have the function keys default to special functions like volume control and then toggle to F keys. I change volume and brightness much, much more often than I need to hit F5 or F8. There might be a way to change this but it would then make the keyboard opposite of the color coded functions. This would confuse people if the computer is shared. My biggest concern is the power jack. It is a thin barrel plug that makes a connection whether it is loose or locked in. The problem is that when it is loose, it falls out and I may not always notice that the battery has stopped charging. When the connector is in securely, it is so secure that I fear what will happen if the cord is ever yanked. In my prior experience managing IT, my company paid out $300 at a time to get those barrel connections repaired. It would have been a much better idea to use a more modern magnetic connection that easily disconnects when yanked. I only bring it up because I have seen this problem occur many times in other brands of laptops.

This computer has me asking questions that I’ve never asked about laptops before. At face value, the LG gram is a “high-end” computer - but unlike its peers, it’s not showy in the least bit, yet it could very easily compete and win for lightness and performance. Before I get into this review, one thing became apparent the longer I tested the gram. From what I can tell, this is LG’s response to the MacBook Air. It competes on weight, materials, and pricing, but doesn’t go into full “MacBook clone” territory. Out of the box, you get a remarkably light laptop that lives up to it’s moniker - the official specification says just over two pounds, but it doesn’t feel it. The laptop is reported to be made from a form of magnesium alloy. This was possibly the most confusing to me as there are elements of it that feel to be made of plastic, but I can assure you, the base doesn’t make the creaking noises associated with plastic when torqued (fun fact: it didn’t flex when I tried testing it as such). Also in the box is a USB C ethernet adapter, something that will be useful beyond just this computer and a feature I’m glad has been relegated to a dongle. Speaking of ports and things not relegated to dongles, there’s plenty of ports built in to allow you to keep mobile without being weighed down with unnecessary plastic accessories - three USB ports (two A’s, one C) mean most of your tech will work without issue, along with an HDMI port to help with those presentations on the road. The only place where the machines physical design really falters here is that the speakers are downfiring, making using it in your lap and listening to music aloud difficult. Opening the laptop, you’re presented with a decent backlit keyboard. I find myself frequently miskeying the Control/Function key as every laptop I have has a different layout for that corner, but otherwise no major surprises. Like every other laptop, the function key row comes loaded with a number of “hardware” control elements, including several that control software features in the laptop. I do wish that there were media playback control buttons such as play/pause as there are several keys that might see zero use in the lifetime of this machine. Finally, the positioning of the sleep button on F4 is unfortunate as it makes putting the computer to sleep when function lock is set far too easy. The power button in the top right also has a fingerprint sensor in it that works with Windows Hello very nicely - unlocking the computer is as easy as a brief and light tap. On occasion it fails to be so easy, but I think this is more down to issues with Windows than with the hardware. The glossy display is touch sensitive for 10 fingers and does a fantastic job of hiding fingerprints while in use. The only oddity here is that the screen doesn’t appear to be a touch screen because it is inset into a bezel whereas most touch screens are one uniform part of the lid. Starting the laptop up, minimal shovelware is installed alongside the OS. There are the games that Microsoft pushes, a trial copy of Office, a copy of Cyberlink media editing tools, and finally some LG ‘hardware’ support applications. One to update drivers, another for instruction manuals, one for controlling the hardware and one to control “reader mode.” Outside of the software, this laptop runs Windows beautifully. Stress testing the built in Intel i5-8265U resulted in a machine that warmed up considerably, but never faltered during use. The fan was super quiet during this time but was clearly doing its job effectively. Reader mode is potentially the worst feature of this laptop. It’s designed to reduce eye strain while you use the laptop by shifting whites to yellows and reducing the backlight intensity. The unfortunate part is that as it has been designed into the hardware, taking up the F9 key and requiring a startup application, resulting in a portion of this laptop that is almost guaranteed to be useless out of the box immediately that you can’t just remove. I have issues with this feature as Windows already provides it; adding extra software just seems to be unnecessarily loading down the machine. Overall, I really like this machine as a Windows alternative to the MacBook Air. It fits the requirements I have for my day to day tasks and has a supreme portability factor. There are a few unfortunate design decisions that hurt the machine, but not enough to prevent me from recommending this if you’re looking for a supremely lightweight, well-endowed Windows machine.

This laptop is amazing! It's fast, it's efficient, the touchscreen is responsive, and even the touchpad isn't overdone. For a few years I've been lugging around a hefty gaming laptop (which I still love) to and from work and places where I wouldn't be using it's extra power. This one is extremely light and compact. Much better for carrying around on a daily basis! You don't sacrifice too much in the way of computing power either. While you're not going to run the latest and greatest video games in full resolution or process some intense graphical video work or anything, it's got ample power for streaming and productivity. The screen quality is very high and the touch screen very responsive as well. Features a few nice quality of life touches like a fingerprint sensor built into the power button to identify you as you bring the laptop out of sleep mode. If anyone needs a laptop with high portability and minimal sacrifice of power this is an excellent choice.

I was skeptical of the Gram laptop lines until I tried one for myself. The materials required to keep these laptops featherweight, may feel flimsy at first - but as you use the laptop regularly -you’ll realize how deceptively durable and rugged it is. The screen ratio is the only downside to this machine. Rather than choosing a productivity geared 16:10 or 2:3 ratio- it’s using a 16:9 ratio with a huge bezel along the bottom. At just over 2lbs- this laptop is packing a respectable quad core processor. If size isn’t an issue, I would opt for the 17 LG Gram instead. Otherwise the 13 packs enough power and battery life in a tiny package to be your perfect travel companion.