Laptops have come a long way from the earliest days when they were pretty much the size of attache cases, trying to cram hardware meant for desktops inside a more portable form. Even gaming laptops have started to become less burdensome, thanks to advancements in technology, and more notebooks are embracing increasingly thin designs for the sake of convenience and portability. Long ago, LG launched a line of laptops that boasted weights of less than a kilogram, hence the “Gram” branding, but it sort of lost that meaning in later models. It seems, however, that LG is back in business with its latest Gram SuperSlim design which finally hits that sub-kilogram mark yet again.
Designer:
To be fair, it’s not that hard to design a lightweight laptop, but making one that is both lightweight and powerful requires some juggling and compromises. Battery life is one of the first to suffer if you need to squeeze out both weight and thickness, with cooling solutions next in line due to the size of decent fans. But with components now getting thinner and smaller even as they get more powerful, manufacturers need to make fewer sacrifices for the sake of a sleek and slim design that still delivers the power that users need from a portable computer.
The newest LG Gram SuperSlim is a testament to that achievement, weighing only 2.18 lbs, barely hitting the kilogram mark, and is less than half an inch thick. That makes it thinner than an AA battery, not that such batteries are used as a standard for thinness. When opened, the 15.6-inch FHD screen looks incredibly and precariously thin, almost as if it could easily snap in half at the slightest force. Fortunately, the laptop does pass the MIL-STD-810H test for durability despite its fragile-looking body.
The laptop also packs quite the hardware, starting with an Intel Core Ultra 5 125H processor and 16GB of RAM. It also has a 60Wh battery rated for around 20 hours of video playback, though mileage will definitely vary. Sadly, it does rely solely on Intel’s integrated GPU, so graphics capabilities won’t be as expansive as having an NVIDIA or AMD chip. Of course, there is plenty of AI to go around, even if Windows Copilot wasn’t explicitly named.
The 2024 LG Gram SuperSlim does make one compromise that Apple also made back in 2016, which earned it a lot of flak. The laptop only has three USB-C type ports and a headphone jack, ditching the full-sized USB and HDMI ports you’d typically find on most laptops. This is a necessary design decision to keep the laptop’s extra slim profile, but it won’t sit well with everyone. Another pain point might be the $1,399.99 price tag, though it’s currently on a $600 discount at the moment.
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