LG gram 14 14Z90T mini review

[John Ratsey]

I commented in my mini-review of the 14Z90RU that I needed to find a reason to buy the 14Z90T in order to compare the two models. Conveniently, a family member's 12 year old Samsung notebook was finally falling apart which provided an opportunity to pass along one of my notebooks so I ordered the 14Z90T from Amazon. It was an ex-return which hadn't had much use.

 

My 14Z90T came in a fairly plain brown box which contrasts with the premium-looking black box of the 14Z90RU.

 

My first finding was that the 14Z90T was, indeed, heavier than the 14Z90R. At 1.12kg it is what the specifications claimed. Why is it heavier? i don't know all the reasons but the bottom of the 14Z90T weighs 109 grams vs 64 grams for the 14Z90RU. The lighter part is a silver colour inside, a 2025-02-26 date stamp and is marked "Material>Mg".  The heavier part is dated 2025-02-22 (the notebook manufacturing date was 2025-03-17) but without other information. It has a black finish on the inside. Why paint it - for better absorption of heat radiated from the electronics? Is it magnesium? Another difference is T has a long bar on the outside instead of the two back feet (14Z90T on left, 14Z90RU on right). 

My 2024 gram Pro also has the long bar. Is it to reduce recirculation of the hot air that is blown out of the backs of the notebooks?

 

I also wondered if the 14Z90T had two fans, which would explain the extra weight. No, it's only got one fan but it is slightly larger than that in the 14Z90RU. The T has the expected two SSD slots but the slot nearest the CPU is marked SSD2. I can see no difference in the performance. Perhaps that slot is deemed secondary because it's nearer the CPU and likely to get hotter. 

The supplied SSD is the same model of 512GB Phison SSD as in the RU. Performance is good but not class-leading:

 

The keyboard has the Copilot key where the right Ctrl key belongs. There's also a squiggle on the left end of the space bar. I haven't yet discovered the meaning of this. The T model has the infra-red camera for login.

[John Ratsey]

More observations:

The 14Z90T comes with LG software called "My gram" instead of the LG Smart Assistant on the 14Z90RU or my 2024 Gram Pro. "My gram" is a step or two backwards in terms of providing easy user access to features such as fan settings and battery management (Fn+F7 also steps through the fan settings). The home page of "My Gram" is dominated by some coloured graphics which look as they have escaped from some childrens' game while the text on the PC maintenance pages isn't friendly to anyone with aging eyes. I thought the folder for LG Smart Assistant was bloated as it takes up about 1/2GB but "My gram" is nearly double that!

I have to admit. however, that I hadn't tried the LG gram Link software until I was setting up the 14Z90T. I've now realised that it is an easy way of moving files between phone and computer.

 

Both the 14Z90T and the 14Z90RU have the same good 1920 x 1200 LGD06EC display. The 14Z90T doesn't have a micro-SD card reader, the RU does.

 

Another subtle difference between the two models is that the T has a smaller dent at the front of the chassis which makes opening the display more difficult than the RU with its bigger dent. Perhaps 2026 will reveal which is LG's preference going forwards.

 

It's time to look at the basic hardware. For some reason, the 14Z90T has the Intel AX211 WiFi / Bluetooth chip instead of the newer BE201 chip. Not that most users have a desparate need for whatever extra the newer chip offers. In other respects it's an Arrow Lake machine with the Intel Ultra 7 255H CPU. This raises the question of why did LG put the 28W CPU into the smallest of the 2025 gram family instead of the lower-rated Lunar Lake CPU? Was availability a factor? The CPU is supported by 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM which is both faster than the DDR4 RAM in the 14Z90RU but also the DDR5 RAM in my gram 17 Pro.

 

[RS4]

Removing the Micro SD card slot is a blatant anti-consumer move from LG, there is more than enough space for that.