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.

LG - gram 13.3" Touch-Screen Laptop - Intel Core i5 - 8GB Memory - 256GB Solid State Drive - Dark Silver Summary: Great laptop to have to do work on-the-go. Pros: - Light for its form factor. - Nice and bright screen with a perfect resolution for its size. - Touch screen is convenient. - The Finger print reader is fast and accurate (enables Windows Hello!) - Unit charges via USB-C port, as well; one less charger to worry about! Cons: - Proprietary charger provided. Why not USB-C? - The build quality is solid, but the feel can seem cheap compared to similarly equipped competing products. - Why isn't there an LG logo on the device (externally)? Use: I use this unit for work when I'm on-the-go, but don't expect to have to work. That means I leave my main workhorses (a desktop and a larger laptop) at home and I bring this guy around. I use it to VPN and remote desktop and get stuff done. I work as a database administrator so the size is just about right for my use. The finger print reader works quite well, surprisingly, and is similar to those used on mobile phones. I have not had a chance to put the device through other potential uses I might have for it (like quick gaming at low/mid/high settings - while traveling), but expect it to function at some level given how snappy it is. The LG Gram has replaced my aging and more expensive to replace (and heavier?) Surface Pro 3. It is a good buy. But for its price point I think some might look towards other options such as the competing similarly equipped Surface Laptop.

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.

To quote a John Mellencamp song lyric...”Don’t go making hasty judgments, because sometimes they could be wrong”...was me when I unboxed the LG gram 13Z990 laptop. I thought to myself, good lord, this thing is flimsy and unsubstantial. Off to LG’s web site to educate myself a little bit about what I just opened. The gram (yes, not capitalized) 13Z990 is billed as an ultra lightweight laptop that passes seven different durability tests and is military-spec rated. Is this a valid claim or advertising hype? I’m not sure as I am unfamiliar with these tests and their standards, but I was impressed after reading about the “carbon nanotube-reinforced magnesium alloy” full metal body which I thought was inexpensive plastic the first time I felt it. The finish of the body is a matte-textured, dark gray color which I assume is bare magnesium alloy. This laptop weighs 2 pounds 2 ounces and is 12 ounces less than the other slim, 13 inch Windows laptop kicking around our house, which I thought was lightweight when compared to the older MacBook Pro we have. This thing is a featherweight! Wow! If I was a student lugging around a backpack with a laptop in it on campus all day, the weight of said laptop would be a prime consideration to me when choosing a machine. Even the power block went on a diet and is light enough to tote around – it has to be a third of the weight of ones we have had in the past. So far the battery life of this thing is awesome as I have used it for a few hours a day for 4 or 5 days now and just had to recharge it. For those times you need to use the laptop while it recharges, the power block has a very generous cord length of 10 feet (the block being at the mid-point). This should come in handy in public spaces where you can’t always get a seat right next to an AC outlet. The keyboard is backlit with two selectable illumination settings (besides “off”). I am a little puzzled as to why there isn’t a sensor that can turn the back lighting on and off based on ambient light levels so that battery power can be conserved. The feel of the keys and their spacing is first rate...as good as any laptop keyboard I have ever felt and easily on par with our 2014 MacBook which is before the keyboard fiasco Apple has been dealing with the past few years. The responsiveness of the track pad is equally impressive with no missed inputs unlike some others I have experienced, and multi-finger gestures are supported. The screen does not have a 360 degree hinge where it will fold all the way back over onto the main body for use as a tablet which might be an issue for some users. The high-gloss touchscreen works flawlessly and I experienced no issues whatsoever with it. The included ports should be enough to satisfy most users as LG includes two USB 3.1, one USB 3.1 Type-C, one HDMI, a Micro-SD card slot, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a DC power jack. A Kensington lock slot is also provided – it appears to accept the T-bar style lock, as I could not find find any documentation regarding this in the LG Easy Guide. And speaking of the Easy Guide, it is the electronic documentation for the computer and is well written, easy to understand and covers all of the pertinent subjects when you have questions regarding the minor nuances of new hardware and manufacturer-specific software (as the Windows 10 experience should be the same everywhere). The built-in speakers are down-firing and do an adequate job for what is required of them. The gram has a piece of software called DTS Audio that allows you to make a variety of adjustments to the sound, more so with the built-in speakers than with ear buds, headphones or external speakers. It can automatically sense when you connect a device to the audio jack and offers some minor settings for these devices. However when using my planar magnetic headphones to listen to music I found the sound quality to be about the same as with other computers. I found my Bluetooth AirPods easy to connect and the sound quality was excellent when listening to music. Solid state hard drives are now pretty common in laptops and if you have never had one before you are in for a treat. With the gram “off”, I pressed the power button and when the lock screen appeared I placed my finger on the power button again (the fingerprint reader is integrated with the power button) to log in and was at my desktop in about 9 seconds. At first I was disappointed that this computer didn’t use the built-in camera for facial recognition, but once you get your fingerprint(s) entered, this log-in device works flawlessly. Initial set-up with Cortana walking you through the procedure is quick and easy. For anyone in search of a very lightweight, easy to carry laptop with more than enough computing power for the average user, and with a build quality to survive the use and abuse that an on-the-go piece of hardware will experience, this LG gram deserves to be on everyone’s short list when they go shopping.

This is an outstanding laptop that competes directly with Microsoft surface and it is a strong competitor for sure. With a beautiful touch screen, 256 gig SSD hard-drive, 8 gigs of RAM and many useful inputs and outputs, this is a very versatile laptop. Connections include USB 3.1, HDMI port, USB-C/ Thunderbolt, Miro SD Card slot for added memory. Set up was quick and easy. Just follow the windows 10 prompts and off you go. The LG's response rivals my Surface laptop. The LG includes the standard list of apps and which includes the 30 day trial of Office 365. Setting up windows mail is easy to do. The screen size is perfect for those on the run and the key board is easy to type on. I really can not find any issues with this laptop and would recommend it for moderate to mid level computing.

So far so good, no issues or problems with my purchase and the geek squad is very knowledgeable and helpful.

On it’s own the LG Gram is a great laptop and if you are looking for one in this size 13” size it will definitely serve you well. I like the amount of ports it has and the screen clarity has a richness to it that others I have seen appear washed out. I can recommend this laptop very easily based on its use and performance...but I am hard pressed not to compare this to another “L” branded laptop that I have been using extensively for nearly 2 years now. I have been the ultraportable category for about 4 years as I want/need/like the concept of having a highly portable, true, laptop that doesn’t give me much by way of the portability, but also through a second monitor on it and you can get some serious work done at a desk. 5 Stars based on use and functionality. It is as expected. 3 Stars based on bang-for-buck. High asking price compared to the competition. There are some innovative features at play here, but I’m not sure its worth the move from the industry standards. The issues I have really come down to bang-for-buck. I was shocked when I first pulled the LG Gram out of the packaging as it looked liked the design of an old Acer Chromebook from circa 2009, same dark grey plastic body/shell, at about half the weight though! Obviously I know the hardware is a far cry from a 10 year old Chromebook, but this is where it is hard not to compare to other laptops in this category. LG describes this build material as Carbon-Nanotube Magnesium Alloy mixture, well that feels like plastic and reacts like plastic. It has a MIL-STD 810 rating, personally I’ll take their word for it, but my eyes see plastic, my fingers think they are touching plastic, and my brain interprets, this thing feels light, but brittle; so I better be careful putting in a bag. There is a bit of flex when closed when pushing on various parts of the device and again my brain says brittle. This is where I’m guessing the light weight comes in for the name “Gram”. However, my aluminum laptop of same size and same specs weighs less than half a pound more still under 3 lbs. So again, my brain is having a hard time with it. I like the cold touch of aluminum. Looking at upgrading, LG went the route of hiding the screws, while I understand the design aesthetic, its re-world practicality sucks. In two years time I know with my usage I’ll be ready for a battery or maybe want to upgrade the hard drive space (at least it has a microSD slot to stave off that part longer) Screen: looks fantastic out of the box. It was a definite upgrade over my current which made me go back and tweak the settings to see if I could match it. I came close but the richness in contrast is better with the LG. Staying on the topic of screen, I don’t like how the LG screen is “in-layed” in the frame, so that the bezel and screen are not one, which means using the touch feature will be harder when trying to access something nearer the bezels. It also gives the appearance of a smaller screen...sometimes I like to be deceived. Keyboard is great no quirks or crazy changes to the shift key that some manufacturers do when creating something in the ultrabook category. I love that the backlighting has two settings of brightness, custom setting would be even better, but I’ll take more than just on/off. Against the black keys it looks better than gray or lighter color keys. Touchpad works well, no issues there, seems maybe a tad resistive to sliding, but could just be that I’m used to a worn in one. Hinge, may seem odd to talk on this, but it is super easy to open, it can be laying flat on the table and one-handed the screen will lift up. This may be because it is not a 2-in-1 which is my preference just so I have the option of putting the screen in any configuration depending on the setting, but I have never found one that is easy to open one handed. Audio: Clarity and loudness is great. Software: minimal bloatware and after spending some time with the LG software (only 2) I actually quite like the tweaks that can be made to make the machine mine. Battery Life: 20.5 hours claimed, typically they say you should expect 70% of that for real world use which gets you to about 14 hours of usage and that is dependent on what you are actually doing. All most all of my work is either done in MS Office or Chrome Browser, little to none video, with audio streaming only via downloaded app. Tabs open minimum of 5 and Microsoft's Your Phone App for Android for SMS. Probably a PDF or two open via Adobe DC Reader, system calculator. Typically that load on the PC is less than 20% usually less than 10 though and the temps are between 45C and 55C, which tends to run on the higher side for that load. The fan is through the back only and the slots are not all that big, so I imagine that this will run a little hotter. Another reason I like aluminum though in ultrabooks as it will help to pull heat out of the machine. Unless of course you are in a hot environment and then it works against you. So in this case the LG may come out on top...not to sure of the properties of their Carbon Nano Tube Magnesium Alloy mixture. Ports: I made mention that this machine has a lot of ports where I have been used to for the past 2 years 2 x USB-C and 1 x USB 3.1 in which one of those USB-C was the charging port as well and had Thunderbolt. I’m torn with the LG as the charger is proprietary and that is my only gripe, I love I have a true HDMI port, no more dongles, oh and LG gives you an Ethernet dongle over USB, which I had to purchase separately for my last machine. Rounding out the ports are 2 x USB 3.1, MicroSD as stated earlier, and combo mic/headphone jack. Of course having bluetooth 5.0 is nice too. I recently acquired an LG 34” Ultrawide monitor and it is a great companion for some serious spreadsheet nirvana...ha, that’s an oxymoron. I debated on staying with what I had or moving to the LG Gram 13. I’ve decided to follow Jesus and go with the LG Gram 13 the two are mutually exclusive...however Jesus could walk on water and I’m pretty sure the LG Gram 13 would take some time to sink as light as it is. For a cheaper price the one I have used for the past two years has served me well and will continue to for someone else after I replace the battery (easily by the way, with no hidden screws). But I do like new too. You have to decide where you will put your money, I can recommend this LG easily for quality and use, but as stated bang-for-buck feels a little off knowing what else is out there given the Chipset, RAM, Storage is the same, touchscreen, etc. All that being the same, its a hard sell based on price. If there is a superior advantage to the Carbon Nanotube Magnesium Alloy then it could change that the paradigm a bit.

Good performance. Excellent display. Wish it had a lighted keyboard.

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.

I had first purchased the HP Envy 13" but it had trackpad configuration issues I could not resolve (even with hacking the registry). When using HP's website, it couldn't even tell what version of Windows it was running (Win10Home). Well, I returned that unit and actually spent more to get the LG gram. (The HP was on sale). I prefer the screen of the LG; even though they are both touchscreens (and, therefore, glossy), the gram appears sharper. BTW, I prefer glossy screens as I come from the Mac world. The gram uses an 8th gen Intel Core i5 while the HP Envy had the latest 4700U AMD CPU which, allegedly, runs rings around the older Core i5. Doesn't seem that way to me; I am not waiting for things to happen. I prefer the keyboard of the gram; the HP's seems huge but that might just be the size of the keycap labels. The gram's key travel is fine although I do prefer a longer travel (like old Mac laptops from 2012 and older; the newer ones are awful). The trackpad software is Microsoft's "precision" driver which is anything but. Adjusting the "friction" and "momentum" (inertia?) settings in the registry set things right; it works like a Mac now. Battery life is tremendous. I can go for a number of days without charging. Buy this. It works great.

First impression of this laptop it is super light. The lightest laptop I have ever used by a far margin. I currently have an Asus Zenbook and this is considerably lighter by a far margin. When I got the box in the mail I actually didn't know what it was, I didn't think that a laptop was inside. it felt like an empty box. Feature wise it's pretty bare bones, no fancy double screen, or secondary control panels. But, what it does have is functional and works well. The lighted keyboard has a good tactile feel, the track pad is responsive and accurate (but the right click is a little picky, need to hit just the right spot to register). The IPS touch screen is responsive, bright with good viewing angles, but the screen bounces if you tap it. The screen holds any position well and tilts way back for stand up use but using the touch screen causes it to bounce since its so light. Speed is great and boots really fast. The finger print reader is perfect and has worked on the first try every time, just press the power button to turn it on and it reads your finger print at the same time. nice upgrade-able design, I have already added a second drive (1TB Curcial P1 m.2 NVMe) and 16GB SODIM, now this little laptop is fully capable for my use. A couple of critiques from me. The power adapter is really flimsy feeling, I think this will break quickly, they should have shipped with a USB-C power adapter since it is capable (this will be my next accessory to buy). A sleeve didn't come with it, I'll have to buy this too. Other then that, no complaints. If you want a super light and portable laptop that will last over 10 hours put this at the top of the list.

The first thing that stood out to me on this computer is the screen, I fell in love with it pretty much right away. The colors were so bright and vibrant, almost surreal. Setup was quick and I like that there wasn’t much pre-installed software other than a few sensible LG utilities. The “skinny” review is that if you’re looking for a non-budget everyday laptop that’s light and speedy and looks great, this is a solid option. The only knocks against it are that it seems pricey for what it is and I was surprised at how weak the sound was, even through headphones. (more on that below) Things I like are: The display, gorgeous as long as you don’t use the “LG Reader mode” it kept overzealously suggesting. The backlit keyboard, this has become a must for me now that I’m used to them. And its general performance throughout my normal routine of browsing, movies, and “getting work done” while travelling was excellent, no complaints at all, it is quite simply a joy to use. As mentioned, after every boot I’d soon get a pop-up telling me to “Please use Reader Mode”. So I tried it. It truly looked awful. I understand that Reader Mode is intended to help with battery life etc but it reduces a gorgeous display to something far less flattering. Further, Reader Mode seems redundant with Windows 10s native Night Light mode. There were some differences between the two, but not enough to justify LG having its own separate utility for it. I don’t fault LG for offering Reader Mode as an option, I just have no idea why my Gram was so insistent that I use it, every boot, even when I was plugged in. One thing that really surprised me though is how bad the built-in sound is. I’m not talking about the built-in speakers, they’re actually OK and on par with what I expect from typical laptop speakers. No, what surprised me is when I plugged in my headphones to listen to music and watch movies -- it was surprisingly thin sounding. I’m an audiophile, I don’t use cheap headphones -- these were Master and Dynamic MW60s wired directly to the 3.5mm port. I use these headphones a lot and they have never sounded as bad as when I used them into the LG Gram. I plugged my MW60s into an old cheap phone, sounded great. Plugged them into a cheap Chromebook, sounded great, plugged them into several other laptops and tablets, rich and full on all of them. Plugged them into the LG Gram, the only device on which they sound wispy and thin, and what few audio adjustments were available through the native driver didn’t help no matter what I tried. I then did a little searching online and found that others have reported this particular audio chipset having an under-whelming internal amplifier, and that corresponds to my experience. So as long as I”m just doing “work” on this laptop or somewhere I can use the speakers it’s fine and I truly do enjoy it, but when I’m in entertainment mode and just want to enjoy some audio to myself (on a plane, in a coffee shop, etc.) I have resorted to bringing a separate USB audio dongle that I use instead of the built-in headphone jack. This makes all the difference and sounds really good, it’s just really unfortunate and surprising in a laptop at this price point that something as simple as even decent basic audio was overlooked. I”m not asking for Dolby THX here, I’d just expect the Gram to sound at least as good as a budget old phone and Chromebook. As much as I listen to music and streaming radio this is a huge shortcoming on an otherwise excellent laptop. It can be overcome with a small USB audio dongle, it’s just a shame a workaround for something so basic is even needed in this case. In the end I do like this laptop, but for me the audio issues are enough that I’d not personally “recommend” it.

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.

First off, when taking it out of the box I couldn't believe how light it was. I thought that the battery wasn't installed. It's really amazing what LG has done here. Setup was easy with the usual Windows 10 setup and uninstalling some bloatware. Ran the Check for Updates and let it download and install all the updates needed. Once it was done doing all the updates I was able to mess around with it and it is fast. Boot up and shut down only takes a few seconds each and any task I tried was quick. Granted, I haven't thrown anything heavy duty at it, so I can't comment on whether this is a good gaming laptop, but I don't believe it's designed for that. As an everyday laptop, or something to supplement another home computer as the "on the go" machine, this is amazing. Videos are crisp, sound is average for a laptop, and everyday normal tasks run smoothly and quickly. The backlit keyboard is always welcome and I recommend making a quick tweak in the LG settings panel to lock the Fn button for the Fn keys at the top of the keyboard. I would highly recommend this to anyone looking for a light and portable laptop.

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 familiar with the LG brand but had never used one of their computers so I was curious how this would compare to the many other laptops I have used throughout the years, whether they run on Windows or Mac. The Gram is packaged nicely, companies seem to be taking a cue from Apple with their easy and clean packaging. Along with the laptop there was the power adapter along with a USB ethernet adapter which was a nice add-in, no one else includes something like this. Upon removing the Gram from the package, I was pleasantly surprised by how light the device is, definitely the lightest laptop that I've ever held. I intend to use this laptop all over my house and travel with it so I wanted something lightweight. The Gram exceeds my expectations. The laptop did not have any juice in the battery so I got it plugged in before setting up Windows. My only gripe is with the power adapter. The Gram has a USB-C port which is great for peripherals and charging, why include a bulky adapter that uses a separate power port? Embrace USB-C. Once I had it charged, I turned it on and let the Windows setup do it's thing. It was very easy as was the setup of the fingerprint ID. This is really fantastic and it works extremely well. I have used Windows Hello logins with the camera, but definitely prefer the fingerprint method. Great feature. The laptop flies. The keyboard is perfect and the trackpad is a precision pad so it works really well and gestures work really well in Chrome. It boots quickly and was not loaded with bloatware, I really love my new Gram and will not hesitate to recommend it to others.

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.

This little LG laptop is amazing! I love it. It's super light, quickly powers up and gets going, has very little adware loaded on it, and it is powerful! Setup was a snap, and it has an icon for checking your hardware/updates pinned to the bottom task bar that is super helpful. My daughter has loaded games on it and it runs them just fine. You won't believe how light this thing is. It would be perfect for the on-the-go business worker or a student, or just to watch movies all day. If you are looking for a solid, quick little laptop this does this trick nicely. The keyboard has a great feel to it, the keys feel nice when you press. The dark silver color is great, cannot see any fingerprints or smudges on it. The screen is nice, image is crisp, clear and with very little bezel. Battery life has been great. I would recommend this light little laptop to anyone, it's a joy to own!