UPDATE March 23, 2020:
It's been a month-and-a-half since my original review (below). I still very much love this laptop. Admittedly, the "Bad" list (below) might sound overly negative, but I'm just being real. The laptop isn't perfect, but *for me* the pros still outweigh the cons and I'd still buy this again in an instant. It's totally understandable if some of these things are deal-breakers for other people -- but if you still get the laptop, hopefully this review helps you understand what you're getting.
Good:
- Still love the large screen and light weight (doesn't feel bulky to me)
- Still enjoy the keyboard layout and number pad
- So far, no bends or dents. The lid hinge is still tight/stable.
- Trackpad works well, feels good.
- The screen and resolution are bright and crisp enough for me.
Bad (although none of these are deal-breakers for me, some of them are annoying):
- The included charger charges SOOOO slowly. The laptop takes hours to charge. Even going from 20% to say 70% takes forever -- it's only a little better if you shut it off/standby/hibernate first. This is my biggest complaint.
- The WiFi takes forever to reconnect when resuming Windows from standby or hibernate. This is my second biggest complaint. It seems to happen on different WiFi networks and a none of my other laptops have had this problem on those same WiFi networks. I Googled a lot to try to fix this, but nothing worked -- including latest drivers. This is probably more of a Windows config/driver problem, but it's still happening on my laptop and I can't fix it.
- Battery life isn't great. When studying I get maybe 5 hours before draining to 20ish%. Obviously this will be different for everyone because we all run different apps or have different things running in the background, but I'm surprised it isn't better.
- Speakers aren't very good. They're not super loud but not very clear either. Pretty disappointing. They sound like they vibrate/resonate when playing particular frequencies. The speakers aren't blown for sure, they just rattle in those very specific instances for some reason.
- I've resorted to only using hibernate when I close the laptop lid (versus just going into standby). The laptop doesn't seem to handle standby well and still runs for quite a while before actually going to standby (if at all). Sometimes I put the laptop in a fitted soft case and I later find out that Windows never really went on standby and I now have a dead battery or I find that the laptop is really hot from running while trapped in the case. Hibernate is fine and it's not slow, but it's annoying that standby doesn't work like it does for other laptops. Probably a Windows issue if anything, but I couldn't find any fixes for this -- and I've tried a lot.
- I wish the track pad was centered relative to the keyboard's home row and space bar, i.e. a little bit more to the left.
- The CPU has throttled down to 0.4 GHz (400 MHz) on occasion. Not a lot though. I wasn't doing anything intensive. Maybe Windows was indexing? Generally, doesn't seem to thermal throttle much though.
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ORIGINAL REVIEW February 4, 2020:
I decided I wanted a lightweight, large screen laptop so the LG Gram 17 was really the only option -- other light laptops aren't 17", and other 17" laptops aren't lightweight. Because of this I admit that this laptop is on the pricey side, but that's to be expected if there are no direct competitors. I've been waiting for the 10th Gen Intel processor. It runs at a lower clock speed than the previous 8th Gen processor, but according to benchmarks it's faster and has better power efficiency. The 10 nm vs the 8th Gen 14 nm manufacturing helps. I haven't had this long enough yet to comment on everyday use, but I'll tell you my first impressions.
Similar to the previous model, it's lightweight with a large screen. The CPU isn't super fast, but that wasn't what was important to me. I wanted long battery life and a large screen. I'm a student so both of these benefit me more than a super-fast processor. The processor is fast enough for what I need it for. A lot of YouTube reviewers don't like this laptop because they think the CPU is under-powered -- they think the only people who want 17" screens are content creators like them, but they're not understanding the audience that actually appreciate what this laptop has to offer. My previous laptop had a 4k 15" touchscreen. I'll have to say that I thought I'd use those options more than I really did. I appreciate that this laptop has a lower resolution (but still high enough to be crisp) to help with battery life. Also, I didn't find the touchscreen useful at all so I'm glad this doesn't have it.
Some of the things I've read from the previous year's model is that the laptop would consume more power than it could charge when under load (maybe high CPU-intensive tasks? or charging a phone on USB?). So essentially people would say that their battery would drain even while charging, which I think is pretty bad. Hopefully the power-efficiency of the new CPU will help with that, but I don't know if that's still a problem. Also, people said that the CPU would thermal throttle with the 8th Gen Intel. Again, not sure yet if this model will do that, but I'm hoping that the lower clock speed and the better efficiency of the 10th Gen will alleviate that. Also, an LG spokesperson somewhere said that this laptop has "better cooling" than the previous gen. I don't know if that's true, but if it is, hopefully that helps as well.
Here are my other first impressions. The keyboard keys are quiet but a little mushy. Not the best, but it's good enough. Also, the new keyboard layout with the expanded backspace and enter keys and the four-column number pad seem better than the previous model. When I first typed on the keyboard, I, like a lot of other reviewers, wasn't used to shifting my typing to the left of the screen, but I'm confident that I'll get used to it. I don't use the number pad a lot, but on my desktop I do use it from time to time, so I think the laptop having it isn't a con. Having the proper number pad layout was important to me though because I type by muscle memory and am really fast with the number pad when I need it. The screen is bright enough. I don't like how glossy it is, but this is easily fixable. All my previous laptops had glossy screens and I always covered it up with anti-glare screen protectors. If you can install them correctly, then it's just as good as having an OEM anti-glare screen. People who complain about glossy screens don't usually know that they can correct the issue pretty easily. The trackpad works really well. It's smooth and has a good texture and feels similar to a Macbook Pro which is a good thing. The clickiness of it though is a bit mushy and soft (meaning the travel to push down on the trackpad to click isn't super-deep and it doesn't have a terribly satisfying click to it), but it's adequate and not horrible. I think it's fine. The fingerprint reader worked well, just as good as other laptops I've had. One thing I don't like is that it has Windows 10 Home instead of Pro. Personally I use Bitlocker and would have preferred Pro for this. I may upgrade, but it's an extra cost.
Spec-wise, here are some things that I noticed that some people might find useful. The memory is faster than the previous model's. It runs at 3200 MHz instead of 2400 MHz (see screenshot). The CPU base clock speed is slower (1.3 GHz vs 1.8 GHz) and the turbo is slower (3.9 GHz vs 4.6 GHz), but according to benchmarks if the 10th Gen has better processing power, better efficiency, runs cooler, and contributes to longer battery life, then I think this is a win. People would say that the 8th Gen would thermal throttle so getting the max turbo wasn't attainable anyway, so hopefully the new CPU will fix this. One thing I didn't like was that they include two 512 GB M.2 SSDs. Why not just one 1 TB? I saw that another store has the same LG model but with only one 512 GB for $350 cheaper. Looking back on it, I should've bought that and use the difference to upgrade to one 1 TB or 2 TB SSD and sell the 512 GB. I was really hoping they would have at least set up the two SSDs in a RAID 0 configuration so I could have one logical 1 TB drive, but they don't. I included a screenshot of the SSDs that are included (Samsung MZVLB512HAJQ, M.2, 3000 MB/s seq. read, 270K IOPS ran. read, PRIe Gen 3 x4, 1800 MB/s seq. write, 420K IOPS ran. write -- according to Samsung's web site). I also included the TPM information that's listed in the BIOS. Again, because Bitlocker is important to me, I was interested in the TPM. My family's phones and WiFi router all use WiFi 6 (802.11ax) so I'm glad this laptop has it to take advantage of my home network's infrastructure. I can confirm that this laptop also supports the new WPA3 which my router and phones are also using.
The things included with the laptop are just the tiny power brick and an Ethernet to USB-C adapter. I love how small and light the power brick is, but I guess we'll have to see if it's under-powered. I've also read that you can charge this laptop using USB-C power delivery. I'm not sure of the wattage it allows, but this is something that I'd like to look into.
So all in all, it's too soon for me to really give a long-term review, but I did want to give some information which isn't really shown anywhere else (LG's website, etc.). Yes, the laptop is pricey for what it is, but again, it's the only lightweight laptop that comes in 17". LG probably won't lower the price until there's more competition in this area, so the high price is expected. Also, this is a niche product. Only certain people want the big screen, the light weight, and moderate processing power. All-in-all I'm happy with my purchase so far. I really do appreciate the better keyboard layout. A non-standard keyboard layout (3-column number pad) is a deal breaker for me, which is why I waited for this version of the laptop rather than getting the previous version.
| Standing screen display size | 17 Inches |
|---|---|
| Screen Resolution | 2560x1600 |
| Max Screen Resolution | 2560 x 1600 Pixels |
| Processor | 1.3 GHz Core_i7_2.0_GHz |
| RAM | 16 GB DDR4 |
| Memory Speed | 3200 MHz |
| Hard Drive | 1 TB Flash Memory Solid State |
| Graphics Coprocessor | Intel Iris Plus Graphics |
| Chipset Brand | Intel |
| Card Description | Integrated |
| Wireless Type | 802.11ax |
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 3 |
| Average Battery Life (in hours) | 17 Hours |
