2022 LG Gram 16/17 announced

[hfm]

14 hours ago, extremecarver said:

are there any updates yet? I haven't found anything. Bit strange Korea is so quiet...

 

The Korean preorder program that came with a free Gram+View monitor was supposed to end on Apr 21, not sure when they were actually shipping, have they started shipping to customers in Korea?

[skipper]

Hi guys, nice to see that you moved here from the old forum.

 

So I got delivery today of the Gram+ View monitor, I am a  big fun of portable monitors (I use three 15.6inch FullHD) ones.

 

I have to say that LG nailed it. If the anti-glare coating on this one is similar to the new 2022 Gram, then I might be tempted to upgrade. I will post pictures when I have more time, but just as I write this I can see the spot lights from the ceiling on the Gram screen,  nothing on the LG View. Brightness looks almost the same my Gram 16, maybe a notch more.

The weight also is the best of all the portable monitors I know.

For a 16inch screen, it is lighter by 150-200gr than the 15.6inch I have and the cover-stand  is wisely made, covers only the front and saves a lot of weight, so the total is less than 1kg, I might save almost 1kg if I replace all 3 monitors with this one.

Only problem is that there is no power delivery, so I cannot use 2 of them without finding a hub which supports USB-C/Display Port and has power delivery.

 

To come back to the new Gram. I am curious to see the performance of Alder lake and the battery. Also how the RTX2050 behaves.

I hate Windows 11 and this cools me down about upgrading, plus all the hassle to set up the new machine.

But I would not mind some more processing power, 32GB of memory ( I am at 85% most of the time when I work) and the antiglare screen.

On the other hand the case is the same, the keyboard is the same, I don't know if it will feel like a real upgrade.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[extremecarver]

https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/515401256

 

So the first standard LG gram 16 surfaced. It's single cooler like 2021 only. Screen measures at 367 nits. 

Identical to the portable screen. So I think I may just order a new panel to upgrade my 2021 model once they show up...

 

If you want more performance you need to order the rtx model or we need to find a way to get the dual cooler retrofit to other models.

 

So the anti glare is a semi gloss? Or is it really grainy? Where did they settle?

[RS4]

On 5/18/2022 at 2:19 AM, skipper said:

Hi guys, nice to see that you moved here from the old forum.

 

So I got delivery today of the Gram+ View monitor, I am a  big fun of portable monitors (I use three 15.6inch FullHD) ones.

 

I have to say that LG nailed it. If the anti-glare coating on this one is similar to the new 2022 Gram, then I might be tempted to upgrade. I will post pictures when I have more time, but just as I write this I can see the spot lights from the ceiling on the Gram screen,  nothing on the LG View. Brightness looks almost the same my Gram 16, maybe a notch more.

 

 

Hi skipper, nice to see you here. Do post pictures of the comparison between the two screens. I will say wait another generation or two before upgrading, the screen is exactly the same apart from anti-glare coating. We can expect mini led HDR screen with 1000 nits brightness and hundreds of zones within a couple of years and that will be a proper upgrade.

[skipper]

Here are pictures, with the spotlight in my home office just above. If you have some more suggestions for pictures let me know. The reduction in glare is impressive.

There is a post on reddit about someone who found the new Gram in Costco and claims almost double the speed in CInebench. This could be an additional reason to upgrade.

 

 

 

[extremecarver]

For a full upgrade U agree. If you can get the panel around 180usd somewhere and often work in light environment, it's a bit different.

 

The rtx2050 version surely will be around twice as fast for heavy load on all cores. As for the single fan version I would doubt that. Though of course maybe the fan spins faster, is a bit larger? Otherwise don't expect more than 40% increase on all core and 10% on single core load. Exchange against a bit less battery life. LG decided to put quite a powerful alder lake inside. They could have gone for the 15w version too and let it run at 25w and get better battery life but worse performance.

I'm pretty sure the 2P core alder Lake will be around the same or better than tiger lake quad core in battery life. Windows 11 of course is way worse than 10 so far. And with alder lake downgrading to 10 may make little sense.

[RS4]

The Anti-glare coating looks like proper matte finish and there is that matte screen look to it which some may not like. What do you say @hfm

[skipper]

3 hours ago, extremecarver said:

For a full upgrade U agree. If you can get the panel around 180usd somewhere and often work in light environment, it's a bit different.

 

The rtx2050 version surely will be around twice as fast for heavy load on all cores. As for the single fan version I would doubt that. Though of course maybe the fan spins faster, is a bit larger? Otherwise don't expect more than 40% increase on all core and 10% on single core load. Exchange against a bit less battery life. LG decided to put quite a powerful alder lake inside. They could have gone for the 15w version too and let it run at 25w and get better battery life but worse performance.

I'm pretty sure the 2P core alder Lake will be around the same or better than tiger lake quad core in battery life. Windows 11 of course is way worse than 10 so far. And with alder lake downgrading to 10 may make little sense.

Yes, I think I will skip this generation, mainly because of windows 11. I am waiting to see the reviews, but you are right, probably the increase in performance will not justify the hassle.

[hfm]

On 5/19/2022 at 10:19 AM, RS4 said:

The Anti-glare coating looks like proper matte finish and there is that matte screen look to it which some may not like. What do you say @hfm

 

I do prefer the clarity of less matte, but I don't usually have the sun shining on the panel so it's plenty bright enough for the environments I use it in. I guess I don't care too much either way as I'm still fine with my 2019 model not looking to buy the new one.

[RS4]

6 hours ago, hfm said:

 

I do prefer the clarity of less matte, but I don't usually have the sun shining on the panel so it's plenty bright enough for the environments I use it in. I guess I don't care too much either way as I'm still fine with my 2019 model not looking to buy the new one.

 

Same here, I do not like matte finish. I have the 2021 Gram 16, so will use it for few more years. The screen is exactly the same,  we can expect mini led HDR screen with 1000 nits brightness and hundreds of zones within a couple of years and that will be a proper upgrade. Like sticking with Windows 10 too.

[skipper]

https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/lg-gram-2-in-1-review/

 

The increase in performance is impressive, the rest remain more or less the same

[Steerpike]

At my local Costco (Bay Area, CA) they were selling the 'LG Gram 16 2-in-1 Laptop' with i7-1260P processor (12th gen) for $1499.99.  I took a quick look at the screen and to me, it did NOT look matt at all; very shiny!  I guess this is because the '2-in-1' has a touch-screen, and touch-screens are by design hard and shiny. I was hoping to get a better feel for just now 'matt' the new 'matt' screens are, but I guess I'll need to keep waiting till they get an actual 12th gen NON-touch laptop in ... . It was also quite heavy, which I imagine is again caused by the touch screen (it was 3.26 lbs for only 16" screen, compared to just under 3.0 lbs for the 17" non-touch model). 

[extremecarver]

Yep the 2-1 are heavier and of course not matte. It seems the LG gram are in stock now, while the older versions can be found at good discounts. 1100 euro for the 16z90p in the German business version 16GB, windows Pro, i5-1135 for example.

The 16z90q goes for 1500 euro minimum now. That's about 100 euros more than last year the P models with 16GB.

 

Oh my power cord broke after not much use at all. Well doesn't matter, it was heavy all along so I don't mind it was used as backup only. But he'll, power adapters with fixed cables are rubbish anyhow knowing that usb-c cables aren't the most robust anyhow.

[skipper]

Question: Have you guys installed windows 11 in the 2021 version? How was your experience in terms of performance-battery life?

I have installed it recently and had some crashes and slow-downs but it seems smoother now. I find that it handles better multiple monitors, this was the primary reason. Otherwise I use ExplorerPatcher so that I get most of the annoying productivity issues of Win11 corrected. But i have only a few days left to revert and I am not yet sure it is worth the risk to get stuck with it. I am not motivated to do a clean install.

[RS4]

Nope, still using Windows 10. There are no benefits of using Windows 11 for my use case instead there are regressions. I am also liking the fact that Windows 10 is limited to just security updates with no more big feature updates which break things.

[extremecarver]

Same I rolled back to 10 after 11 was just worse overall and I could not find a single improvement for myself

[extremecarver]

Still no quality reviews of the gram 2022 except the Korean one?

Cannot find any - even though it's available to buy in many markets for a month or so...

 

The 16z90p could be had for around 950 euros on sale. Great deal (i5/16GB/W10pro)

[skipper]

Same here, no reviews, some guys at Reddit have bought it and from the comments I am not excited about it. It throttles, it has no finger print reader and apparently the battery is worse.

[Steerpike]

On 6/17/2022 at 9:44 AM, skipper said:

Question: Have you guys installed windows 11 in the 2021 version? How was your experience in terms of performance-battery life?

I have installed it recently and had some crashes and slow-downs but it seems smoother now. I find that it handles better multiple monitors, this was the primary reason. Otherwise I use ExplorerPatcher so that I get most of the annoying productivity issues of Win11 corrected. But i have only a few days left to revert and I am not yet sure it is worth the risk to get stuck with it. I am not motivated to do a clean install.

Can you elaborate on how win 11 handles multiple monitors better? 

 

I've been using Win 11 with my Gram 17 for over 3 months now (came pre-installed). Explorer Patcher lets me forget it's not Win 10, and I have to say, I've had only 1 BSOD in 3 months, which is pretty amazing. I've also only 'restarted' (as opposed to sleep/hibernate) a handful of times - it feels a bit like the energizer bunny - it just keeps going ... 

 

I wish I could give you information on battery life; I'm intuitively not getting great battery life, but without configuring the exact same machine with win 10, and using it in parallel with the same websites, etc, I don't know how to really offer a comparative answer. Just one website (out of 50 or so I have permanently loaded) can go 'rogue' and cause CPU usage to go higher.  Since installing uBlock origin pop-up blocker, and tweaking some 'widget' settings, I'm seeing typical consumption around 7-9 watts for typical web browsing, email handling, etc. What I haven't seen is any of the 'commercialization' of Win 11 that people on here were complaining about. It behaves exactly like win 10 in my opinion, no more or less ads, no more or less anything really. 

[skipper]

35 minutes ago, Steerpike said:

Can you elaborate on how win 11 handles multiple monitors better? 

 

I have my Gram 16 most of the time connected to my eGPU and alternate between 2-4-6 monitors. I use an application called DisplayFusion that helps to handle multiple monitor configuration profiles and alternate easily. With Win11 the change is much faster and smoother than with Win10. With Win10 the monitors were switching off and on, flickering multiple times etc. Also Win 11 remembers better the windows positions.

 

I don't use it much on battery, but for casual MS Office and web surfing I have the feeling I get the same battery as with Win10.

The only issue are the updates that sometimes mess up things badly and have to uninstall them. Especially in combination with Explorer Patcher.

Without Explorer Patcher I could definitely not use Win 11.

[skipper]

I wish LG would use the new Ryzen 6000 series. The Alder Lake proved too inefficient, the buyers of the new Gram complain about heat and noise.

Apparently the new Ryzen with USB4 can connect to Thunderbolt, so there is absolutely no reason anymore to stick with Intel.

[RS4]

3 hours ago, skipper said:

I wish LG would use the new Ryzen 6000 series. The Alder Lake proved too inefficient, the buyers of the new Gram complain about heat and noise.

Apparently the new Ryzen with USB4 can connect to Thunderbolt, so there is absolutely no reason anymore to stick with Intel.

 

Interesting feedback from 2022 Gram owners. 2021 version with Tiger Lake is both cool and quiet.

[Steerpike]

They finally got the 2022 LG Gram 17 at my local Costco; saw it yesterday.  The screen is definitely matt!  I've preferred matt forever, but now I've got the 2021 LG Gram 17, I'm getting used to the glossy screen, and I may actually prefer it now.  

 

 

For $1600, you get Intel i7-1260P, 16 GB ram, 512 GB SSD. 

 

Interestingly, the keyboard markings are quite different!  On my keyboard, the markings are big, and centered. On the 2022 model, they are smaller and oriented top/left. They also arrange the 'regular' and 'shifted' characters side by side, with equal 'weighting'.  Not sure why they would make that change! 

Top - 2021 kbd; bottom - 2022 kbd:

I much prefer the 2021 layout ... not that I guess I really care, as I'm pretty good at touch-typing without looking. But some of the shifted characters I do need to look at. 

 

[RS4]

Yes, the 2022 LG Gram keyboard lettering is definitely a downgrade when compared to clear and big 2021 version.

[John Ratsey]

16 hours ago, RS4 said:

Yes, the 2022 LG Gram keyboard lettering is definitely a downgrade when compared to clear and big 2021 version.

I wonder if the backlighting has disappeared as well. Big, backlit, lettering is easy to read in poor lighting.

 

Oh well! Wait to see what 2023 brings. For me, the main drawbacks of my Gram 17 are (a) inadequate cooling capacity for the CPU when under load and (b) not enough RAM (Firefox with innumerable tabs open can get very greedy). There's plenty of room for another fan in the 17" Gram.