LG Gram 2017 – FATTER & FUNNER!
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,142 words · ~5 min read
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the 15in LG gam notebook that I reviewed
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last year didn't have the greatest keyboard or a super crisp high
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resolution screen it didn't have the best battery life and the strength of
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its construction was frankly subpar but it got a very positive review
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because I understood the Steep learning curve associated with engineering such a
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unique product the world's lightest 50
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15-in laptop under 1 kg well now they've had a year to
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reflect on their experience and refine the design so the 2017 iteration of the
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LG gram will get no such special
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treatment let's see how it
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fars the master keys Pro keyboard lineup from Cooler Master is available in three
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siid each in white or RGB flavors check them
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out at the link below right out of the gate LG's increased confidence in the
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gram product line is apparent we get three different screen sizes to choose
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from and the variety of configurations and colors available is wider our 14
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iner is equipped with a dual core Core i5 7200 U 8 gigs of RAM and a 256 gig
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SATA 3 SSD while our 15.6 in rocks a
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core i775 500 U 16 gigs of RAM and a 512
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gig SATA 3 SSD and there have been some other changes too for one thing the
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topend 15.6 in model weighs more than a
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kilogram now with the 14in coming in at
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almost the same weight as last year's
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15.6 wait what wasn't the weight the
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whole point of the gram name even well
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maybe but don't care because you get a whole lot of awesome stuff for your 10%
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weight increase without in my mind giving up a noticeable amount of the
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portability of it first up the lousy hinge has been replaced by one that's
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damn near perfect this is more impressive than you might think one
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finger lift is not easy on a device that
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weighs so little next up all three gam
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sizes are available with multi-touch screens now the 1080p IPS display still
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isn't dazzlingly bright and suffers from worse than usual glare under non- ideal
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conditions and I think strengthening it
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a little bit to reduce wobble is especially important for something
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you're supposed to touch but I'd still rather have this feature than not third
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up the addition of a backlight on the
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keyboard woo I mean I got nothing negative to say about it it's got two
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brightness levels and works as you would expect the absence of this on last
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year's model was one of my main gripes about it along with number four
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unexceptional battery life which has been well let's just say the battery got
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more roed up than '90s Major League
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Baseball all three models 13 14 and 15.6
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in get 60 wat hour batteries that's
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about 85% of the capacity that powers a thin
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and light gaming notebook like the blade for 3 to 4 hours except that by
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comparison the gram sips power LG did
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this cool video showcasing a sponsored art collab that was created on a single
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charge on the gram and that was neat but
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to put it in a more practical everyday perspective I forgot my laptop charger
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at the office on Friday used it as I
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normally would over the weekend and still had 30% left when I got into the
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office on Monday morning the last machine I had that freed me from
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worrying about the location of the nearest wall outlet like that was the
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2015 MacBook and unlike that thing the
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gram has ports though while the USBC
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Port can be used for 4K 60 HZ output and
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I'm pretty darn thankful for the micro SD and type a USB 3s I do think that the
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load out could have been better Thunderbolt 3 and HDMI 2.0 would be
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welcome editions on the next model and
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Imo charging should really be handled by
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another type c port and while I'm at it the speakers
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sound like they're coming from somewhere under my desk probably because that's
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where they're pointed the webcam location not to mention the image
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quality sucks the big one I'd like to see it moved above the display even if
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it costs me a few grams and while the
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click pad actually feels pretty decent in day-to-day use objectively it really
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needs to be better built on a device that costs this much with that said the
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2x2 Wi-Fi implementation is a solid B minus managing over 30 megabytes per
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second in my standard test location and the keyboard wins back a lot of the
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points I just deducted there are a couple of layout Oddities I'm not a huge
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fan of the power button here instead of delete but the key switches are
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surprisingly satisfying to type on and there's a pleasant soft touch coding on
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the key caps which add up to an overall really enjoyable typing experience and
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this is critical for a hyper portable machine like this because even though
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the simple cooling solution kept everything under control at reasonable
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noise levels even with no thermal throttling these uclass dual cores
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aren't beefy enough to do much more than
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sit and work on them they just do it for a really really really really long time
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in the LG gram got a point you need to
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over at softcat through the link
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below thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do but if
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was awesome get subscribed hit the like button or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured look at this I
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got another one back here whoa but wait there's more at Amazon in the video
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