John Ratsey

The impact will be greatest on notebooks with small screens. I've just done a quick test looking at the battery drain on this Gram Pro 17" at both ends of the display brightness range. At minimum brightness the drain was about 3.5W and at maximum drain it was 7W. There was still some backlighting on the minimum setting and I would assume that about 1.5W of the average 4.5W in the test above is for the backlight. This won't reduce with the new Intel hardware. Working on text only with a black background on an OLED panel may reduce the display power drain.

The Gram Book has appeared on the LG UK website. What caught my eye was "Color gamut NTSC 45% (Typical)" which, unless I'm mistaken, is underwhelming. I'm prepared to pay a extra for a notebook with a top quality display but the LG book appears to offer anything above average except for the price tag. It's a bewildering system and it's challenging trying to make sure that I select the right product out of AD78A1, AA78A1, AD89A1 and AD79A1.

My 2022 Gram 17 has the Intel i7-1260P with 12 cores. I've done a video playback battery rundown test on the Gram Pro 17. It took a long time. I didn't take specific power-saving measures such as turning off the WiFi and the average power drain was about 4.5W. For comparison, the similar test on the SuperSlim 15.6 with the same chipset but the OLED display gave an average 5W power drain. I would then be waiting another year for the price to drop but decided I wanted to experience the twin fan benefits without a long delay. It will also be interesting to see how much the overall system power drain drops with the latest Intel hardware. I suspect not as much as the headline CPU change suggests.

Curiosity overwhelmed financial prudence so I now own a 2024 Gram Pro 17 with 32GB RAM. UK stock of this version seems to be running low as the LG website now shows no stock and Amazon has pushed up its price from £1,439 to £1,699 since I made my purchase. Perhaps more are on the way or maybe it's the 2025 version but the box for my Gram Pro shows a manufacturing date of 24 January 2025. What have I confirmed? 1. The Gram Pro is thinner than the normal Gram but the front-to-back dimension has increased (the width is the same). It's also slightly lighter - just under the claimed 1.3kg according to my digital scales. 2. There are two fans and two SSD slots (while the Pro only has 4 screws holding the base, there are a lot more clips around the edge so overall it's much harder work to get inside). What have I discovered about noise and performance? Subjectively, it's quieter than my 2022 Gram 17 or the SuperSlim 15.6" (same hardware except for only 16GB RAM). However, according to Cinebench 23, the Pro runs about 9% faster in the single core test and at least 30% in the multi core test. Also, based on the Cinebench 23 testing, the Pro is about 15% faster on single core and 50% faster on multicore than my 2022 Gram 17. The maximum external temperature on the Pro stayed below 40C and both the SuperSlim while the 2022 Gram 17 crept over 40C under the same test conditions. My Pro came with a 1TB Hynix PC801 SSD (same as in the SuperSlim). It's a good performer but has been replaced by a 2TB Crucial T500. I have yet to move over the 4TB second SSD from my 2022 Gram 17. A useful improvement compared with the older Gram is that the fan mode options now include an "auto" setting. I've now set this as the default as it provides most of the performance provided by the "high" fan setting but only gives the extra noise when the computer is working hard. There is no obvious difference in the quality of the display compared to the older Gram 17 (there's a different panel number and the maximum brightness seems to have increased) and, to my eyes, the quality matches the OLED panel in the SuperSlim. Whether the Pro is worth the extra money over the normal Gram depends on how much the user values a bit less noise and a bit more performance, plus the difference in price. I have said for a long time that I would get a two fan version if it were available as I'm often sitting in an otherwise quiet room.

LG announced four new notebooks for 2025 https://www.lg.com/us/press-release/lg-hybrid-ai-gram-laptops .Three models are upgraded versions of the Pro and the fourth is a more wallet-friendly 15.6" model. There's a little more information at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/lg-gram-pro-2-in-1-2025-hands-on-of-course-a-thin-and-light-laptop-gets-ai-at-ces-2025-023252332.html . The 17" Pro with dGPU is heavier than the 2024 version. We will have to wait to discover if, as in previous years, the standard models are refreshed with the latest Intel chipsets.

I asked LG to confirm that the Intel graphics version of the Pro does have two fans and two SSD slots and have received confirmation (despite it being Sunday). I've done a little more research and the inside of the Nvidia graphics version of the Gram Pro is shown at about 6m 20s in this video review The fan layout looks to be identical in both versions of the Gram Pro. I haven't yet found an answer as to whether the extra cooling provided for the Intel version just keeps the notebook quieter or whether LG has increased the CPU power limit compared to the normal Gram (reviews show that this power limit is a constraint on performance compared with other notebooks using the same Intel hardware). One way to find out is to buy one!

I've just been looking at the details of the Gram 17 Pro although it's been around for a year or more. There are two versions: 1. With a Nvidia GPU, which I was vaguely aware of and knew it had two cooling fans 2. With the Intel CPU / GPU, which I've just discovered also has two fans according to https://www.lg.com/uk/laptops/gram-pro/17z90sp-g-aa78a1/. I've tweaked the photo on the LG website to show more detail and it can be seen that one fan is smaller than the other. Nonetheless, the extra cooling capacity is welcome. The right hand fan occupies the space where the SSD slots are on the standard Gram 17 model. One slot has been relocated next to the CPU while the other is on the right hand side of the photo. The other features of the Pro version are that it is thinner than the standard Gram 17 and the weight is reduced from 1.35kg to 1.30kg. The battery capacity of the Intel GPU Gram 17 Pro is 77Whr but so is the standard 2024 Gram 17. The Nvidia GPU version of the Pro has a 90Whr battery. I'm getting tempted on account of the improved cooling system and the knowledge that my 2024 LG SuperSlim seems to sleep OK. Perhaps it's this detail which has caused my 2022 Gram 17 to have nightmares during the past few days: It's been waking from hibernation! I've done several reboots to see if that will clear what is a serious bug (could the latest Windows update have included something causing this?). I've also looked around to see if there are alternatives to the Gram 17 in the same size. Most have 16:9 displays or have a strong gaming bias.

I propose that LG makes a 15" 16:10 notebook. The display (preferably more resolution than 1920 x 1200) size would be 201mm x 323mm which is slightly higher than a 15.6 panel and about 20mm narrower. I would make the notebook narrower and provide a column of navigation keys instead of the numpad. The overall size will be slightly smaller than the SuperSlim so there would be no difficulty in keeping the weight below 1kg. This design would fill the gap between the 16:10 14" and 16" models.

A couple more comments: 1. The SuperSlim seems to sleep properly whereas the fan runs on my Gram 17. I presume that someone figured out how to get the hardware and BIOS to wprk properly with Windows Modern Standby. 2. A useful little feature is that holding down the Fn key brings up a list of extra Fn key short-cuts suh as Fn+Q to change the fan setting.

Same here. The length is the critical dimension to fit into the zip pockets of some of my clothes. I would be happier, however, if Samsung increased the thickness slightly to give a significant boost to the battery capacity.

Here's a photo of the SuperSlim 15.6 between the 13" Samsung and the Gram 17. Size-wise it's half way between the two. By itself, the SuperSlim looks big but the Gram 17 puts it into context. In reality, there are few compromises compared to the standard Gram 15.6" which also has an FHD display: Fewer ports (easily fixed with adaptors), a slightly smaller battery and, I assume, a thinner fan. The internal arrangement looks very similar (the 2nd SSD slot now contains a 2TB SSD) and I'm mystified how the weight reduction was achieved. I've done a few performance tests. In Cinebench 23 the Intel Ultra 7 155H CPU comfortably out-performs the i7-1260P CPU in my 2022 Gram 17 but in wPrime the opposite applies. I suspect that wPrime is too old to know how to get the best out of those 16 cores with different performance characteristics. I've done a simple battery test by playing mp4 videos. The result looks more than sufficient for my needs (I remember when getting 3 hours on this test was a very good result!). One issue I would highlight is that whereas the 2023 SuperSlim featured an anti-glare coating on the display, the 2024 model does not so reflections are a potential problem. Another issue for UK (and I think EU) purchasers is that the SuperSlim is shipped with a power brick and two leads which weigh 0.36kg. I have left that in the box and use a much lighter 65W wall-mounted USB-C PSU. The SuperSlim will work, however, with lower rated USB-C PSUs but won't be able to concurrently charge the battery and handle a big CPU load (the maximum battery charge rate is 35W). As for wanting an 800 nits screen, I wonder what the battery drain would be like?

I have been using a Galaxy Book Pro 13.3 (model NP-935XDB) as my travel notebook for the past 3 years (I didn't realise it was that long). It's behaved very well and the most recent upgrade was to a 2TB SSD in the M.2 2230 format. However, I've become increasingly annoyed by two aspects (i) the lack of keys for Home / End / PgUp and PgDn and (ii) the keyboard / touchpad layout is sufficiently different from my LG Gram 17 to cause a lot of mis-types for several days after changing notebooks. My eyes would also appreciate a bigger screen (although the Samsung's display quality is excellent). After my latest trip I resolved to look around for a replacement travel notebook which provided the missing navigation keys with the minimal weight or thickness increase. I've found that this time of year is good for computer shopping as retailers want to clear their 2024 model stock to make space for the 2025 products. Samsung, despite my slim and light (0.9kg) Book Pro 13.3, make nothing similarly lightweight in a bigger size plus the 15" model lacks the wanted navigation keys. HP makes 14" notebooks with a column of navigation keys to the right of the keyboard but these weigh 1.3kg or more (almost as much as my Gram 17). Some Lenovo notebooks have PgUp/PgDn in cursor block and lightest is X1 Carbon (1.08kg) which is somewhat expensive. I then looked at LG's line-up and discovered the SuperSlim 15.6 which was introduced in 2023. It wasn't so much the slimness which caught my attention but the weight of a few grammes under 1kg. I wasn't looking for a display as big as 15.6" but the format meant that the computer has a 3 column numpad which I can use for my navigation keys. It also has what LG claims is a premium OLED display. The next question was whether it was available in the UK and how much did it cost? The 2023 model (15Z90RT) was offered by a third party on Amazon but further searching revealed that the 2024 model ( 15Z90ST) with a 16GB RAM + 1TB SSD was available at a major UK electronics retailer for a lower, and what I considered to be reasonable) price so I placed my order. What have I found? The SuperSlim is indeed both thin and light. It's 3/4 of the weight of my Gram 17 with 80% of the screen area. I've been less impressed by the display quality. The supplied LG colour profile had a strong red bias but this has been fixed by my Spyder 5 monitor calibrator. 1920 x 1080 resolution in the 15.6" seems a bit coarse compared to both the Gram 17's and smaller Samsung's displays. A 16:10 panel would also have been a welcome improvement. I suspect, however, that once the LG designers had decided upon a weight of less than 1kg, they found other other compromises had to be made. Hence only USB-C ports (three) and no USB-A although Samsung managed to fit the latter into a notebook of the same thickness. A micro-SD card slot is also absent. They didn't, however, compromise on the battery which is 60Whr. The fan noise at the default cooling mode is noticeable in a quiet room. I've visited the BIOS advanced settings (accessed using the key sequence here) to raise the fan threshold temperatures by 5C to encourage less fan activity. I've noticed one improvement over my 2022 Gram 17 - the new notebook sleeps silently. The SuperSlim has dual M.2 SSD slots and the second one is now occupied by a WD SN770 SSD which had been sitting on my shelf since it was superseded by a 4TB SSD in the Gram 17. Only time will tell if the SuperSlim will fulfill my travel notebbok requirements (spending most of it's travel in a bag and only used in the evenings). At the moment it's the second device on my desk with the primary use of streaming TV. Photos and some data to follow.

What does BatteryInfoView report as the battery statistics and power drain when idle or light usage?

It's a mystery to my why hibernate isn't enabled by default on laptops but have you tried the steps here Shut down, sleep, or hibernate your PC - Microsoft Support ? Also, unless you are needing the maximum hours on battery, enable the battery saver mode which limits the maximum charge to 80%.

This UK seller https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/356279468163 used the following classification for battery health. I haven't any idea whether that's industry standard, nor what testing is done to confirm the health. Very Good - Grade A - has 90% or greater of its original design capacity remaining. Good - Grade B - between 75% and 89% of its original design capacity remaining. Fair - Grade C - between 50% and 74% of its original design capacity remaining It's interesting that the new model has a completely different voltage. Li-ion and LiPo batteries have a nominal voltage of 3.6 to 3.7V, so two of those in series gives a voltage around 7.4V. The fully charged voltage will be up to 4.3V according to https://www.ufinebattery.com/blog/type-of-lithium-battery-voltage/. Perhaps the new Gram 17 battery uses four cells in series and quotes the maximum voltage on the label. I wonder why LG have made the change?