Interested in LG Gram 16 2-in-1, unsure of some things

[ptrkhh]

Hello, I too am a refugee from NotebookReview and TabletPCReview forum. You might have known me from the guy who first made the warranty claim of the battery of Acer TimelineX, which then triggered other forum members here to also do the same. Or you might know me from the guy who made Windows 8.1 custom ROM for some of the Surface Pro models.

 

Either way, I am now rocking a Dell XPS 15 and Apple MacBook Pro 13", both 2016 models. I am interested in getting the new LG Gram 16 2-in-1 but unsure of something:

 

1. The battery life seems phenomenal even on Notebookcheck review. Can you guys do a battery report `powercfg /batteryreport` and report your typical battery life? The estimated battery life is located on the very bottom of the battery report page. Would be great if you could also describe shortly your usages when on battery. (For reference, my XPS is ~5 hours and my MacBook is ~3 hours, neither of which is satisfactory for me)

2. The USB-A port seems to be fragile, any of you had it breaking yet?

3. I noticed my XPS has a significantly worse glare when outdoor compared to my MacBook, often making any level screen brightness unusable, how are your experience with the LG Gram?

4. The XPS seem to be keeping higher fan speed for longer, even after the machine has been idle for 10-15 minutes, which I find annoying. How does the fan profile work on the LG Gram?

5. Does the speaker go as loud as a 2016 13" MacBook? My XPS often doesn't go loud enough

6. Almost every review mentions the flex of the chassis and hinges. How's yours holding up?

7. For someone looking for 15"+ touchscreen laptop with an extremely long battery life, do you guys have other recommendations?

[RS4]

1. I use the Gram 16 mostly on power but all the reviews show good battery life and it will certainly have better battery life than XPS 15.

 

2. The USB A port is solid, no problems with it. I use the USB-A port loads of times with pen drives, External drives, printers etc.

 

3. The new LG Gram 2022 version has matte screen, so reflections will not be a problem.

 

4.  The fan speed and sound will be much better than XPS 15, you can expect a quieter experience.

 

5. Speakers are at the bottom, so they can be called average, not good not bad. Decent loudness, can watch youtube videos etc but I use headphones for TV shows, Movies.

 

6.  It is made of Magnesium alloy for light weight but still meets MIL-STD-810G standard for toughness, so do not worry about this point.

 

[John Ratsey]

I've got a normal Gram 17 which spends most of its time on a desk so I've not given the battery a good test. However, as the notebookcheck review comments, the LG Gram has a small fan and heatsink which effectively means that the CPU can only run at full power for a very short period before slowing down to avoid overheating. This also means that the ability to guzzle the battery power is also throttled and helps to extend the battery run time. LG has provided a good size of battery given the design focus on minamal weight and thickness.

 

LG's claim of 18.5 hours is based on "Video playback time testing conducted by LG in March 2022 using FHD video playback (1080p resolution), airplane mode on, 150 nits brightness, earphones, and default power options. Actual battery usage time and performance may vary depending on various factors, including network connectivity and application use." Video playback support is now built into the GPU so video playback not a very challenging test. Display brightness is a key factor in the run time and 150 nits is probably inadequate for comfortable viewing in a well-lit room. This video might help understand the brightness issue. Anyone wanting to maximise battery run time should do their own experiments to find out what uses the power. The starting place is to minimise the number of open software packages. The more the CPU can sleep then the less power it uses. 

 

While LG's 2022 normal laptops have an anti-glare coating, I expect the 2-in-1 models with touchscreens are still glossy because it is much easier to clean fingerprints off plain glass than coated glass. If LG had made significant changes to the display then I would expected this to have been mentioned in the sales info. Most likely it is the same as last year which the notebookcheck review noted wasn't bright enough for serious outside use. However, brightness sufficient for use outside will substantially increase battery drain.

 

The LG Smart Assistant software provides four fan options (called cooling mode): No noise, Low, Normal and High. The slower the fan speed then the more the CPU speed is throttled to avoid overheating. If you are in a quiet room then the noise of a high fan will be very noticeable. I'm happy with the normal setting although I have adjusted the thermal triggers in the advanced BIOS settings. The fan speed responds quite quickly to CPU load and thermal requirements.

 

Rigidity used to be a key durability consideration when the mainboards occupied the full width of a notebook and any flexing could result in failure. These days, however, the mainboards are much smaller with ribbon cables connecting auxiliary boards such as those with the ports so a bit of bending doesn't cause problems. Displays are also more tolerant of flexing than in a previous era.

 

I would also mention that if overall portability is a key consideration then the LG Gram will run on a 45W PSU although it will give a warning. 45W is plenty to run the computer but not to also quickly charge the battery at the same time (my Gram 17 is using about 25W from the mains socket as I type this). It will even work, with more warnings, using a suitable 25W USB-C phone charger.

 

Whether the LG Gram will suit your needs will depend on your expected usage. If it's web browsing, emails, video watching or normal office tasks then the modest CPU power (effectively no more than 2GHz due to the cooling system thermal limits) will be fine. If you want to do heavy number crunching or 3D gaming then it will give disappointment.

[RS4]

Yes, the display is glossy for the touchscreen Gram 2 in 1 version and matte display for the regular Gram series.

[ptrkhh]

 

On 10/31/2022 at 7:24 AM, RS4 said:

MIL-STD-810G standard for toughness

What exactly is that? From Wikipedia:

 

Quote

U.S. MIL-STD-810 is a flexible standard that allows users to tailor test methods to fit the application. As a result, a vendor's claims of "...compliance to U.S. MIL-STD-810..." can be misleading, because no commercial organization or agency certifies compliance, commercial vendors can create the test methods or approaches to fit their product.

 

On some products, they claim dropping the product from a certain height, for example, but the information from LG seems to be pretty sparse. They never even made the claim of which height they dropped the device for testing, or if they tested it at all. (https://www.lg.com/us/laptops/lg-16t90q-k.ads8u1)

 

On 11/1/2022 at 4:05 AM, John Ratsey said:

This also means that the ability to guzzle the battery power is also throttled and helps to extend the battery run time.

Fair enough. Oh yeah, I got a question, when you're watching YouTube, for example, is the fan spinning?

 

I remember my Surface Pro 3 and 4 could stay dead silent with the fan turned off, but all my other laptops have a slight hum

 

On 11/1/2022 at 4:05 AM, John Ratsey said:

However, brightness sufficient for use outside will substantially increase battery drain.

This is why I'm more concerned about the display coating than the brightness itself. With a good anti-reflective coating, you could reduce the need of screen brightness tremendously. Maybe I'll have to resort to third-party matte screen protectors

 

On 11/1/2022 at 4:05 AM, John Ratsey said:

I'm happy with the normal setting although I have adjusted the thermal triggers in the advanced BIOS settings. The fan speed responds quite quickly to CPU load and thermal requirements.

Good to know! What thermal triggers are there in the BIOS settings?

 

On 11/1/2022 at 4:05 AM, John Ratsey said:

I would also mention that if overall portability is a key consideration then the LG Gram will run on a 45W PSU although it will give a warning.

Ah that's good to know! I have like half a dozen 45W (15V3A) USB-C chargers that I got for free, this would come in handy.

 

On 11/1/2022 at 4:05 AM, John Ratsey said:

my Gram 17 is using about 25W from the mains socket as I type this

This is quite concerning, to me. 25W on 80 Wh battery would mean only 3.2 hours battery life 😭😭 

 

On 11/1/2022 at 4:05 AM, John Ratsey said:

If it's web browsing, emails, video watching or normal office tasks then the modest CPU power (effectively no more than 2GHz due to the cooling system thermal limits) will be fine. If you want to do heavy number crunching or 3D gaming then it will give disappointment.

I'm mostly programming (Java, Go, Python) and design (Solidworks, Photoshop), in addition to general web browsing, but cooling potential has never really been an issue for me. As long as the system can sustain like 1-minute load on the CPU, that would do as the load is not continuous

 

Any other recommendation for a 15+ touch laptop with long battery life?

 

 

[John Ratsey]

On 11/24/2022 at 10:28 PM, ptrkhh said:

 

Fair enough. Oh yeah, I got a question, when you're watching YouTube, for example, is the fan spinning?

 

I remember my Surface Pro 3 and 4 could stay dead silent with the fan turned off, but all my other laptops have a slight hum

 

Good to know! What thermal triggers are there in the BIOS settings?

See here for a screen photo showing the thermal triggers. The fan on my Gram 17 seems to be running permanently although it's not an obnoxious whine and is less obtrusive than a fan switching on and off or having frequent big changes in speed.

 

Samsung make a 15.6" 2-in-1 which is worth investigating.  I've got a 13.3" Galaxy Book Pro which is normally very quiet so it's possible that Samsung have a slightly better cooling system than LG.  The QLED display is extremely good.