John Ratsey

1. I struggle to see any quality difference between the OLED panel on the 15.6" Gram SuperSlim and the IPS panel on the Gram Pro 17. The main visual difference is that the OLED panel is glossy and can cause reflection problems under certain lighting conditions. 2. Windows 11 might sort itself out in a week or two. For the first couple of weeks of my Gram Pro ownership the fan would get noisy every time I told the computer to sleep. This has now stopped so I presume the cause was Windows doing optimising when the computer was idle.

Comparison of the specs shows that the 2025 Gram Pro 17 is 1.7mm thicker and 70g heavier than the 2024 version. Perhaps the extra thickness is to accommodate thicker fans which will increase the cooling airflow. There's no change in the thickness of the normal Gram 17 although the specs indicate that the Arrow Lake version is 39g heavier than the 2024 model. Has that been given a second fan? If so, that will reduce the feature difference between the two models.

One big unknown at the moment is how much the LG Gram chassis limitations will throttle the Arrow Lake potential. In recent years the hardware improvements have tended to be incremental. Perhaps the biggest performance boost this century came from the shift from mechanical hard drives to SSDs. My reason for changing from a 2022 Gram 17 to the 2024 Gram Pro 17 was primarily to get quieter operation because of the dual fans. I haven't noticed any significant change in performance but my tests indicated an improved battery run time should the need arise.

I've run Geekbench 6 on my 2024 Gram Pro and, not surprisingly, the results, particularly for the multi-core CPU test, depend on the fan control settings. I could probably get slightly higher results of I closed all my open programs, but I did close Firefox with its innumerable open tabs. For the auto fan control setting, the CPU result is 1809 (single)/ 7688 (multi), the GPU result is 27722. For the normal fan control setting, the CPU result is 1833 (single)/ 10304 (multi), the GPU result is 26691. For the high fan control setting, the CPU result is 2207 (single)/ 11658 (multi), the GPU result is 27378. For comparison, I've also done the same tests on my 2024 Gram SuperSlim which has the same CPU but only 16GB RAM, one fan and nothing else running. The SuperSlim's GPU score is consistently lower than for the Gram Pro. Strangely, while the Geekbench GPU report includes "Transfer Rate 5592 MT/s" for the Gram Pro, there's no corresponding entry in the report for the SuperSlim. The OpenCL Device memory shows as 14.4GB for the Gram Pro and only 6.86GB for the SuperSlim. Does the system allocate more RAM to the GPU when there's 32GB? For the auto fan control setting, the CPU result is 2072 (single)/ 10580 (multi), the GPU result is 19618. For the normal fan control setting, the CPU result is 2013 (single)/ 10950 (multi), the GPU result is 21448. For the high fan control setting, the CPU result is 2101 (single)/ 11178 (multi), the GPU result is 21554. Regarding the keyboard on my Gram Pro, I feel it's an improvement on my 2022 Gram 17. However, I find that fingers usually quickly acclimatise to keyboards.

I have had some very sturdy notebooks in times past which were more likely to cause damage than be damaged. Bend the display slightly and it would crack. Bend the chassis slightly and the mainboard might crack or, as a minimum, a connection would be upset. The first notebook I owned which was less sturdy was a Sony G11 (2007) which had a 12.1" display, weighed 1.13kg and had a decent battery life. I discovered that the chassis or the display could be bent a little without any adverse effects. The drawbacks were a single core CPU and a 1024 x 768 display at a time when dual core and higher resolution were becoming the norm so I didn't keep the notebook very long. LG has combined lightweight materials with thinness which makes the overall product more flexible. The electronics can tolerate this fairly well as the mainboard has shrunk from being the full width of the notebook to something the size of a postcard which is joined to other parts by ribbon cables. Your Gram 17 has revealed what happens under severe conditions, but chassis problems can usually be fixed with some tape or glue. However, when I take my SuperSlim on holiday I will be surrounding it with clothes to minimise the risk of bending and possible damage.

My 2024 Gram 17 Pro has now been in use for several weeks. Under my normal usage situation I can't hear the fans although they are running, quietly, so the notebook has fulfilled that requirement.

There's a simple review of a 2025 Gram 17 here. There's a lot of emphasis on AI, but how much of that is new? The 2025 Gram has an AI fan setting whereas the 2024 models have an Auto fan setting. I wonder if there's any difference.

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.