Steerpike

Same for me; I didn't go out and choose to buy W11 (and I would have been happy if W10 had been installed also), but it came pre-installed on the laptop I bought and I decided to stick with it. It has been, by far, the most stable OS I've ever had. I don't think I've seen a BSOD in 3 years, and I never, ever have to reboot - I just let it go to sleep. It does its job and I never think about it (until I check this forum, where the only activity now seems to be W11 bashing). I don't notice any ads being shoved in my face (the 'start' menu remains pretty benign). Basically, 'it just works' and seems no different from W10 before it (as a daily user).

Thanks for that link. I'm already happy with the performance of my 2021 (P designation) Gram 17, so I'm sure this 2024 (S) will be good enough. My biggest concern with my current model is the 'palm rejection' is only so-so - I'm often finding the cursor getting relocated if I move my hands away and back. Well, I guess also, I had to disable many of the gestures early on (pinch to zoom, two-finger right-click, etc) because it could not distinguish gestures - so I would be curious to see if this model is any better. I really wish they had reviewed the touch-screen model; I'm really curious to know how the screen looks. I'll probably click 'buy' soon to get the $400 off, before it goes back up in price ...

I wouldn't shed too many tears for tech workers in Silicon Valley. I've lived in the Bay Area for 40 years now, and these tech workers will find new jobs, probably with more pay, within a few weeks. That's one great advantage of living in a place like this - plenty of competition among employers. I've had numerous friends who got laid off during the various 'tech layoffs', only to find a better, higher paying job very quickly. Also, people forget the flip-side; these companies go on big recruiting binges (the easier it is to fire, the more likely they are to hire without restraint). The Semiconductor industry is on a roll right now, with companies like NVidea unable to meet demands for AI-related GPUs. The people who need our sympathy are people in minimum-wage jobs, people working basic jobs to put food on the table, or provide medical insurance. Employers like McDonalds and Walmart will keep the workers' hours under the limits where they have to provide insurance benefits, and/or fire them when they get close to eligibility for such benefits - those are the scumbags.

I'm looking for a second laptop for travel, 14", to complement my LG Gram 17 which is a wonderful desktop replacement laptop but a bit large for my backpack. I see that Samsung are now up to the 'Galaxy Book4' number (the '4' possibly corresponding to 14th gen processors?). Here's the 14" Book 4 Pro version: Galaxy Book4 Pro, 14", Intel^® Core™ Ultra 7, 512GB, Moonstone Gray | Samsung US Very skimpy details on things like 'screen resolution' - it just says '3k' which annoys me. The Costco site says 2880 x 1800, which is more informative, but it's for the 16" model. Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro 16” Touchscreen Laptop – Intel Core Ultra 7-155H Processor – WQXGA+ (2880 x 1800) – Windows 11 | Costco Looks like I'm going to have to pay a lot for a 14" model!

I'm still happily using my LG Gram 11th gen with glossy screen, which I've posted about in this forum before, but I am finally running into limits of the 16 GB RAM. I just saw this on the Costco website - (model 17Z90S-H.ADB9U1 ) LG gram 17" Touchscreen Intel EVO Edition Laptop - Intel Core Ultra 7-155H - WQXGA (2560 X 1600) - Windows 11 | Costco $1,200, with 32 Gig RAM, 2TB SSD, and the usual 'other stuff'. I do notice that it is touchscreen, and that it weighs over 3 lbs (3.12 lbs, according to LG's website) I don't want touchscreen, but i may be tempted to give it a try. Has anyone seen the LG touchscreen implementation? It says the screen is 'non-reflective' but I wonder how it compares to the non-touch version? LG website: LG gram 17" Laptop - 17Z90S-H.ADB9U1 | LG USA Suffix 'S' = 14th Gen. Any comments on 14th gen, overall? The 2TB is implemented as 2x1TB, which is not ideal; I would end up pulling 1 TB and replacing it with a 2TB stick I guess.

Funny you should mention that; our electric stove has symbols to indicate which knob controls which 'ring', and I always have to double-check the choice - it's just not 'obvious' to my brain at first glance. I ruined a lovely ceramic item that was sitting on the 'wrong' ring one time! I've considered more than once applying stickers with 'Front' and 'Rear' on the knobs!

Just a general comment / question about your impressive efforts here ... from what you are saying, it sounds like you replaced the entire 'base' or 'chassis' of the laptop, if what you got was the keyboard plus palm rest? The 'palm rest' is really the entire structure that surrounds the keyboard, is it not, to which all other things are mounted (mobo, speakers, battery, etc)? I guess it did not include the trackpad. This is my LG Gram 17, for reference:

I did try 'show hidden devices', and under 'disk drives', there are two 'Generic Mass-Storage USB Devices' and one 'SMI USB DISK USB Device' - non indicating any problems. It would be interesting to know what exact device 'should' be there for future reference!

The SD Card Reader on my LG Gram 17 (2021 model - 17Z95P) just stopped working; no obvious cause (no updates applied, no physical issues, etc). Tried two cards; both cards can be read in an external SD card reader. Device Manager 'Disk Drives' shows only the two SSDs that I have installed; I'm guessing that - if the card reader were working - there'd be an entry for the card reader there. Any thoughts?

My SD Card reader (LG Gram 17 2021 model) just stopped working; this is a critical item for me. I have an external SD card reader (and the card works in it) but this is really annoying! Did you do anything to try to fix it? Looks like the reader is direct mounted onto the motherboard so nothing to wiggle or replace. In device manager, I have nothing relevant under disk drives - just the two SSDs. I'm guessing there should be something there for the SSD drive?

What is 'RTX version' in this context? Is it an LG model, or some other model? Google suggests RTX is a 'type' of laptop, something to do with gaming, but I'm not a gamer so don't recognize the term.

What's a good Asus model to look into? I guess I shouldn't worry too much; My LG Gram 17 hasn't set foot outside the house since I bought it!

Wow, that's not good at all! I had my Samsung NP940X5J for 7 years, used it all day/every day, and you'd hardly know it was used! Just a slight 'polish' where the wrist rests. But - I do like the light-weight of the LG Gram, and don't expect such amazing durability (trade-off for the weight). I first bought the Dell XPS 17 and it was built like a tank ... but weighed a ton AND - died within a week of receipt, so not perfect either!

How is it manifesting itself to you? I'm not aware of the "AI Assistant" appearing, so I have no need to switch it off. I mostly search the internet from Chrome, though and I never search from the taskbar, or similar. I do leave Edge as the default browser, for various obscure reasons, but I only use Edge for certain browsing activities (I love how Edge tabs factor into 'Alt-tab' excursions).

My problem is one of proportionality. I see the value of this thread (and this forum) not as a therapy session for people to vent their frustrations, but rather to provide useful guidance to others who may come here looking for good advice. This thread has been hijacked by people who mainly want to spill venom over Windows 11. I'm sure some people stumble upon this thread and read it to get an idea of 'how is Windows 11?'. To read this thread, it's a disaster and should be avoided at all costs - that's certainly the conclusion I would form. I couldn't avoid W11 initially as it came pre-installed on my new laptop. I thought about downgrading, but it wasn't clear that a brand new 'consumer grade' laptop with hardware such as a fingerprint reader, backlit keyboard, custom keyboard 'Fn' keys, ambient light sensor, camera, trackpad, the latest wifi chips, etc would be fully functional after a downgrade; just how good is the vendor's 'driver management' page, and do they provide W10 versions of ALL the required drivers? Rather than go down that rabbit hole (which I've done many times in the past) I decided to just 'suck it and see'. And to my great surprise, it's been a perfectly fine experience (I once lost access on an old laptop to Fn-key control of screen brightness, and keyboard backlighting, just by doing a clean install of W10 on a laptop that SHIPPED with W10 - the vendor's driver/support page simply didn't support getting those things back, and I had to re-install from an image - this was all documented on the precursor to this site). There have been dozens of posts here criticizing MS for stuffing adds everywhere, and 'commercializing' the OS. I'm simply not seeing any of that. And while the 'start' menu has degraded slightly (Windows 10 with it's 'live tiles' was not great either), I've learned to get a lot more use out of the 'task bar' - I now 'pin' all my favorite / frequent apps there, and I find it much more user-friendly than using the 'start' menu (especially because I can right-click an app icon in the task-bar and get a list of recent files used by that app) so getting away from the 'start' menu has in fact been a blessing, one I never expected. And also, when I DO need to use 'start' (typically to 'find' an app I don't use often), rather than wade through a long list of possible apps, I use the ability to enter a few letters of the app name (eg I can type 'view' and it will pull up TeamViewer and IrfanView). And W11 has done an amazing job of handling multiple screens at different resolutions, of display size scaling, etc - better than W10, and a massive improvement over W7. Finally, the OS is simply a means towards getting to your applications - excel, browser, games, calculator, quicken, etc. I spend 99.9% of my time 'within' a variety of apps, and I'm oblivious to what OS I'm working 'under'. I got used to W7, later I got used to W10, and now after a couple of years I've got used to W11. I went back to my W10 laptop the other day to find something I hadn't yet migrated, and it felt so 'odd'.