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ToolsBut what better laptop to outdo the gram 15 than the gram 16 ? Yes, LG has come back with its annual refresh for the gram family, and every device now comes with a 16:10 expression ratio for the display, which was previously exclusive to the 17-inch model. With the tall screen, the middle size choice now has a 16-inch display, which is why it ‘s called gram 16 rather of gram 15 .
The gram 14 has besides changed to the grandiloquent aspect ratio, but it still has the same pixel density. The gram 16, on the other hand, now comes with a WQXGA panel. It ‘s good a very large upgrade from last class, and I can tell you right away that it ‘s an amazing device. Let ‘s get into the review .
Specs
CPU
Intel Core i7-1165G7 (1.30GHz/3.90GHz)
GPU
Intel Iris Xe Graphics
Dimensions
355.9 adam 243.4 adam 16.8mm ( 14.01 adam 9.58 x 0.66 inches ) ; 1190g ( 2.62lbs )
Display
16 inches, 2560×1600, IPS LCD, 99% DCI-P3
Storage
512GB M.2 SSD
RAM
16GB LPDDR4x 4266MHz
Ports
(2) USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A
(2) Thunderbolt 4
(1) HDMI
MicroSD card reader
3.5mm combo audio
Kensington lock port
Battery
80Wh four-cell lithium-ion (up to 22 hours)
Material
Magnesium alloy
Color
Obsidian Black (as reviewed), Quartz Silver
Windows Hello
Fingerprint
OS
Windows 10 Home
Price
$1,399 (256GB of storage)/$1,699 (1TB)
Day one
Design and ports
There are two key aspects that LG constantly focuses on with the design of its gram laptops. Lightness and lastingness. gram laptops have long met military standards for lastingness with a MIL-STD-810G denounce, and that ‘s the lapp this year. To achieve that lastingness while still being lighter, LG uses a magnesium alloy for the laptop ‘s body, and while some may prefer the palpate of aluminum, I actually quite like it. The body has a flatness application that feels in truth nice to the contact, besides .
I have to reiterate how light this thing is. This 16-inch laptop is significantly lighter than the MagicBook 14 I reviewed a few weeks ago, and it never ceases to amaze me how easy it is to pick up and carry anywhere. And despite that, you can easily open the eyelid with just one finger, more so than any early laptop I ‘ve tried. It ‘s good amazing overall .
You besides do n’t have to make a short ton of sacrifices to get that lightness. On the leave side, you still get two Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI, and a 3.5mm earphone jack. You might be disappointed that both Thunderbolt ports are on the lapp side, since that may limit your ability to connect to a display and/or power mercantile establishment in a specific status, but it ‘s calm awesome to have two of them .
On the right side, you get two USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports, a microSD tease reader, and Kensington interlock port to dock the laptop at an agency or something if you ‘re worry about it getting stolen .
once you open it up, the keyboard deck looks reasonably clean. You can see that it has a numpad and a fingerprint detector built into the power button. end class, there was a small round clitoris inside a rectangle, but this year, the whole rectangle is a fingermark lector. The fingerprint detector can besides remember your fingerprint when you press the power button so it can log you in right away. We ‘ll get into more detail on the keyboard and trackpad in their respective department, though .
The display helping has minimal bezels all about, but it does fit a 720p webcam in the exceed bezel, where it should be .
The bottom of the gram 16 is where the speakers are and not much else. This panel is the entirely flaw I can point out in this laptop as it tends to flex very well and it about feels like paper. You can see this in my hands-on video above at the 4:56 mark. I ‘ve reached out to LG to see if this may be a faulty unit or share of the design and will update this when I hear back .
suffice it to say, I ‘m in sleep together with the overall purpose of this laptop. The elation alone is incredible, but the fact that you still get a in full capable machine as well is just amazing .
Display and sound
The display is one of the key upgrades on the LG gram 16 compared to its predecessor, and it ‘s besides the best laptop display I ‘ve ever used. I say that objectively because it ‘s the first time I ‘m using a laptop with a solution higher than Full HD. In this case, the resolution is WQXGA, or 2560 by 1600, which means it besides has a 16:10 aspect proportion. The tall expose is part of the cause why it ‘s immediately a 16-inch panel rather of a 15-inch one, and it ‘s amazing .
In every laptop I ‘ve reviewed so far, I end up saying Full HD resolution and the 16:9 view proportion are ticket, but this laptop has spoiled me, and it ‘ll be hard to go back. While Full HD is hush sharp enough in my opinion, having the add resolution means the display scale can make UI elements smaller, therefore fitting more information on the screen. copulate that with the improbable aspect proportion, and you can see a draw more of whatever you ‘re doing, be it reading an article or scrolling through Twitter .
It besides looks actually adept. Colors from the expose are super vibrant and full of life, and it ‘s just pleasant to look at. The potential downside to that is that LG is using a glossy and slightly sticky-feeling formative cover for the screen. It ‘s not a touch screen so the feel should n’t very be a problem, but the glossy coating means you get a batch of reflections if you ‘re working under steer sunlight .
As mentioned above, the speakers on the LG gram 16 are on its bottom, which is not an ideal placement. I do n’t think it ruins the know though, and the speakers still get reasonably loud and sound pretty good, precisely nothing mind-blowing .
As for the webcam, it ‘s besides pretty good. After reviewing a few excessively many Honor laptops, I ‘m just felicitous to ultimately review a laptop with proper webcam placement so that I can actually make video recording calls with it. The actual quality of the television camera is n’t the best, even if it is HD, but it ‘s serviceable, and the built-in microphones are at least big for calls without having to use a headset .
Keyboard and trackpad
The gram 16 keeps raking in the praise as we take a look at the keyboard. I ‘ve found the typing feel on this laptop to be very comfortable, with all keys offering a solid come of change of location and overall feel. They all feel very stable and high timbre, and there ‘s very not a draw I can say. I will point out that I ‘m beaming LG has done away with the orange accents from concluding year ‘s model. I was fine with it, but this fair feel cleaner .
It ‘s besides not very much that I get to review a laptop with a full number pad, and I ‘m glad LG is making dependable use of the available outer space – while besides being surprised at how a lot extra thrust we can get with such a light laptop. I do n’t use the count embroider that often, but sometimes it ‘s just more commodious when I open the calculator app to run some numbers cursorily .
As for the trackpad, it ‘s nothing brusque of great to me. This is quite possibly the largest trackpad I ‘ve ever used, particularly in terms of stature, and it ‘s fair amazing. I love all the space it gives me to work with, and it makes it truly comfortable to use all the gestures enabled by the Precision drivers, which are besides here .
It feels quite decent and fluent to the contact, excessively, which is something I did n’t like arsenic much on final year ‘s model. I ‘ve seen some people point out they ‘d prefer having break buttons at the bottom of the trackpad, but I prefer this stylus by far .
Performance, battery life, and software
last class, when I reviewed the gram 15, I noted that the performance was a little below what I would have expected from the processors inside. But while I was disappointed last class, I was in full prepared for slightly worse performance this year on report of this thing being so light. But it turns out I did n’t need to, because this year, the gram 16 is n’t very worse than early laptops with the lapp central processing unit .
The LG gram 16 has about always been alert for me for daily use, which is what it ‘s very meant for. It ‘s something you can well take to school or into the position, and it handles those kinds of tasks truly well, I ‘ve rarely felt like I had to wait for it. The only exception to that is a very specific scenario : watch videos in the myTube app for Windows 10, which take a couple of excess seconds to load for some reason .
Let ‘s take a attend at some benchmarks beginning. I should note that PCMark 8 has stopped working, since it has n’t been supported since January. I ran the benchmarks but it never let me see the results, so we ‘ll be looking at the tests I could see results for .
Across the board, benchmark scores are actually above many other laptops with exchangeable specs, with the exception of Cinebench. Being that this is one of the more intensive benchmarks, I believe this may be where thermal constraints play a bigger function, but otherwise, the gram 16 performs fabulously. The SSD in the device is besides pretty fast, with consecutive reads at just under 3400MB/s, while consecutive writes are equitable under 3000MB/s .
Where the gram 16 actually shines, though, is battery life. How LG fits an 80Wh battery into something this light is beyond me, but I ‘m not complaining at all. This thing well lasts me all day, much longer than any other laptop I ‘ve reviewed. typically, when testing the battery life in my laptop reviews, I never plug them into my monitor, I only use the laptop ‘s screen to avoid draining the barrage besides fast. I largely did that here, besides, but even on a day where I did plug it into a monitor for two hours, took television calls on Teams for at least another hour, and worked through a normal workday, the gram 16 would n’t die. It ‘s baffling to me that it lasts this long even with a high-resolution display like this. If you could n’t already tell, I ‘m in love with this laptop .
As for software, obviously the gram 16 runs Windows 10, but LG packs quite a few apps that can be considered bloatware with it. There are a few things you ‘d expect, like the LG Control Center for changing certain power and display settings, the Update Center for updates, and the Easy Guide and Troubleshooting apps. You besides get a crowd of apps by CyberLink like PowerDirector and PhotoDirector, and the McAfee antivirus, all things I promptly uninstalled from my car .
One app that I think is matter to is Virtoo by LG, which lets you connect your call to your personal computer, not besides differently from Microsoft ‘s Your Phone app. You can view and manage notifications, take calls, send messages, and see photos and videos from your call on your personal computer. It besides lets you mirror your telephone ‘s screen door, and that makes it a bit more utilitarian, since the Your Phone app entirely lets you do this with some Samsung phones. american samoa retentive as you can install the Virtoo by LG app on your phone, this gorge should all work, which I appreciate. I did run into some issues because the Android app kept crashing for me, but when it worked, it was pretty cool .
Conclusion
I ‘ve said this multiple times at this point, but I am absolutely in love with the LG gram 16. It does everything so well that even where it ‘s not as capital, I can well forgive it. The display is beautiful, acute, and fits a distribute more content than I ‘m practice to, the trackpad is huge and has preciseness drivers, and the keyboard is comfortable and even includes a number diggings as an extra bonus .
You besides get enough of ports for connectivity, very good performance for daily tasks, and outstanding battery life. All of this comes in a box so light that I ca n’t help but wonder what kind of magic tricks LG is pulling here .
It ‘s not a 100 % perfect device, and if I had to point out some flaws, I ‘d say the placement of the speakers and the overall prototype quality of the webcam could be better, but those feel like minor blemishes in an otherwise leading package. I ‘d besides love a affect screen, but that ‘s a matter of shape divisor, and LG does offer a gram 16 2-in-1 in some markets ( but not Portugal, sadly ) .
It ‘s impossible for me to not love this laptop, and it has absolutely earned one of the highest ratings I ‘ve always given in a revue. While I could n’t find this specific storage and RAM configuration for sale, you can get it with 1TB of storage from LG ‘s web site for $ 1,699, or come devour to 256GB for $ 1,399. It ‘s absolutely worth your clock and money .
Gallery: LG gram 16
