I looked up the 2017 models. The 13.3 goes for $799 on Amazon. If the 2018 models follow suit then I really dont see the point of WoA. Same price as the upper tier novago, comparable battery life. Runs everything native. WRT 2.0 is looking to be a bust.
And yeah, looks like a decent laptop but I am curious about the wether or not its lpddr3 or ddr4 and if the former how much of a hit is it and if its a meaningful hit.
There won't be a big difference between LPDDR3 and DDR4 in terms of performance. The 8th Gen mobile chips support LPDDR3-2133 or DDR4-2400. That's 12.5% difference in peak bandwidth. The 2-3% or so performance it may show in certain applications can easily be overshadowed by how good or bad the system design is.
Indeed. I was considering the Asus UX330UA, but for $800 this is a better deal just for the battery life - and a way better deal than the Novago which I was also considering. Spring 2018 is shaping up to be exciting with options for those of us in need of an upgrade.
I have the ASUS UX501V. I absolutely love it. I thought about a 13" but I like having a numpad. and despite being a 15" its quite portable, and it has a DGPU. The ASUS are well built. Battery Life is great too but yeah, these LG Grams are impressive. I'm just not away from a plug long enough to need it. Can't wait till they come out so I can see some comparos.
I would be surprised if these debuted below $1k. Also, WoA is aiming for that battery life while on LTE, which I'm not sure is comparable, since I don't know how much power Intel's LTE solution requires.
It looks nice but there are a few things that stand out as problematic: 1) the huge gap between the touchpad and the chassis 2) only one usb-c port and that doesn't appear to employ the PD 2.0 spec, so, it's going to have a dedicated port for power 3) relatively low resolution screen - even at 13.3", I find 1080p to be too pixelated
Despite those things, this is still the best spec'd laptop I've seen for awhile.
In which case, as this is an English language site, perhaps the author ought to have used text such as "rechargeable battery" and "battery" if context actually required it. Perhaps in Anton's first language, accumulator (or something similar) is the word used for "battery". I suspect that the word "battery" works for pretty much everybody.
I wonder if they improved those extremely reflective (and not bright enough) screens.... That was one of the reasons why I went with the notebook 9 last year instead of lg gram...
I'd be interested in the 13" version as long as they keep the price what I consider reasonable (ie: up to CDN$800 for the 8GB/256GB version). Wasn't mentioned in the article but backlit keys would be nice. Also, no "bilingual" keyboard layout for Canada please- have a separate SKUs for the French keyboard! (Hope someone at LG is reading this)
That's not what's considered reasonable nowadays. CDN $800 is US $620. Canadian pricing tends to be higher than exchange rates so $800cdn means $599usd or lower.
I can't argue with that exchange rate, but for example, just a few days ago I saw an ad for a Dell 13" 5000-series (maybe 3000) with those specs for CDN$800, so I don't think it's completely out of line. If anything, regular price of CDN$1000 and occasional sale price $800-850 I'd be ok with. But I do take your point that that's not the reality anymore.
My gripe is that now you have garbage rebranded Atoms (and soon, ARM) with eMMC trying to displace the "400-600" price laptops that traditionally were meh-to-crap build quality but good CPU/RAM and user-upgradable HDD.
Well actually that is crazy if we compare that to a MacBook which is full of batteries and rakes in at 2 pounds. Just 41,1 Wh and 195g. And a week before I considered that quite high in this space (the capacity).
What they did there ? Made it out of cardboard so it seems light, have they removed the fan if there was any, or made the motherboard as an external acessory ?
I just wish this is that “batterevolution” of some breaktrough super dense batteries that is going to benefit everything. Or at least new method for battery packimg in notebooks.
The 2017 model (Samsung) has a 33wh battery and weight 788gr (less than a surface pro without keyboard). I have opened it and man that motherboard is tiny. Also the metal the laptop is made of is very light, I think it's similar to that of the surface. There is a fan, but you have control over the thermals (you can toggle silent mode and it will throttle and be silent) or let the fun run when needed.
They are using patented new battery (using carbon nanotubes or something), and custom litium-magnesium alloy to make both battery and case extremely light.
If it has LPDDR4 Ram + thunderbolt 3, (which it has to have) I see NO reason to even HAVE a desktop anymore, unless you use 1080-class GPU horsepower. There is 4 core CPU, there is ram, there is GPU possibility and it weights like a heavy tablet I hope price is under 1500 for entry model. (Because for games top i7 won't make much sense because of power draw limitation, so ~3.4ghz/4 core would be decent enough, my desktop haswell I5 was ~3.4-3.6ghz)
Well, in a thin and light you're going to get a lot of throttling. You could run an 8700K at 4.8-5.0 Ghz all day, while as a system like this will probably throttle to 2-2.5 Ghz if you are pushing it hard.
Power button in the top right corner, where delete or backspace should be, completely ruined the whole laptop. Can't believe they fuck this up on $1000 machines. Like it's acceptable to accidently put the machine to sleep or worse, shut it down, multiple times a day because they were too cheap to put a fucking button on the side of the machine.
Unbelievable. I don't complain about much but this is an amazing trend in stupid industrial design.
I've noticed that, but that is an OS hook, because even Macbooks with a "real" power button react differently than Windows does. Microsoft does not accommodate this type of design. In Windows, when you push a power button, it sleeps/suspends or shuts down the system, whether it is momentary or what.
Windows had had the same thing since Vista LOL. Control Panel > Power Options > Choose what the power buttons do.
I agree that a three column numpad is pointless, but I don't know what yall are on about in regards to the power button. Just change the function. I use the numpad on my ASUS a lot. Never hit the power button.
Glad someone other than me pointed this out. I always hear this complaint in Windows laptops. You know how many times I've seen that complaint on a Macbook review? Exactly zero. #bias
I agree. The overall keyboard destroys the otherwise excellent machine. It's unbelievable so many companies mess up keyboards. It seems HP, Lenovo and Dell are the only PC makers (excluding Apple) that get it right. Literally everyone else fucks up the keyboard.
It's worse than that, it's a 3 column abomination not a full pad; meaning it's unusable for the fraction of the market that does significant amounts of numeric entry and do want a numberpad.
And on top of that, I notice that the touchpad isn't centered below the keyboard. Meaning that you're likely to end up resting your right palm on the touchpad surface, and end up accidentally moving the cursor and clicking while trying to type.
It's too bad. The laptop looks pretty good other than that.
Strange as they should use the extra space provided by the larger screen to have a larger battery, in theory this can bring longer battery life even with the larger screen.. but they're using the exact same battery for all screen configuration making the larger screen having shorter battery life.
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deepblue08 - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
That laptop actually looks really good!Manch - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
I looked up the 2017 models. The 13.3 goes for $799 on Amazon. If the 2018 models follow suit then I really dont see the point of WoA. Same price as the upper tier novago, comparable battery life. Runs everything native. WRT 2.0 is looking to be a bust.Manch - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
And yeah, looks like a decent laptop but I am curious about the wether or not its lpddr3 or ddr4 and if the former how much of a hit is it and if its a meaningful hit.IntelUser2000 - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
There won't be a big difference between LPDDR3 and DDR4 in terms of performance. The 8th Gen mobile chips support LPDDR3-2133 or DDR4-2400. That's 12.5% difference in peak bandwidth. The 2-3% or so performance it may show in certain applications can easily be overshadowed by how good or bad the system design is.euskalzabe - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
Indeed. I was considering the Asus UX330UA, but for $800 this is a better deal just for the battery life - and a way better deal than the Novago which I was also considering. Spring 2018 is shaping up to be exciting with options for those of us in need of an upgrade.Manch - Sunday, December 17, 2017 - link
I have the ASUS UX501V. I absolutely love it. I thought about a 13" but I like having a numpad. and despite being a 15" its quite portable, and it has a DGPU. The ASUS are well built. Battery Life is great too but yeah, these LG Grams are impressive. I'm just not away from a plug long enough to need it. Can't wait till they come out so I can see some comparos.lmcd - Saturday, December 16, 2017 - link
I would be surprised if these debuted below $1k. Also, WoA is aiming for that battery life while on LTE, which I'm not sure is comparable, since I don't know how much power Intel's LTE solution requires.tuxRoller - Saturday, December 16, 2017 - link
It looks nice but there are a few things that stand out as problematic:1) the huge gap between the touchpad and the chassis
2) only one usb-c port and that doesn't appear to employ the PD 2.0 spec, so, it's going to have a dedicated port for power
3) relatively low resolution screen - even at 13.3", I find 1080p to be too pixelated
Despite those things, this is still the best spec'd laptop I've seen for awhile.
peevee - Monday, December 18, 2017 - link
Agree. Nice battery, not too much battery-eating resolution, right CPUs, no battery-eating gaming GPU, m.2 slot, MicroSD slot... everything in place.shabby - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
Rip Snapdragon laptops...Cliff34 - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
I have the same thought. Why spend the money on a mobile SoC when you can get a real laptop.The_Assimilator - Saturday, December 16, 2017 - link
Price.t.s - Saturday, December 16, 2017 - link
if I have to choose between $599 mobile SoC vs $799 x86, I'll always pick the latter.Manch - Sunday, December 17, 2017 - link
The 8GB/128GB SSD novago is 799 so price is equal.thetuna - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
Stop trying to make accumulator happen.brandonicus - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
Such an annoying word, it's an obsolete term and in these articles it seems purposefully confusing. There is nothing wrong with the word 'battery'.Death666Angel - Saturday, December 16, 2017 - link
At least in German, "Akku" (meaning "Akkumulator") refers to a rechargeable battery. Simply saying "Batterie" means it is not rechargeable.timbotim - Saturday, December 16, 2017 - link
In which case, as this is an English language site, perhaps the author ought to have used text such as "rechargeable battery" and "battery" if context actually required it. Perhaps in Anton's first language, accumulator (or something similar) is the word used for "battery". I suspect that the word "battery" works for pretty much everybody.digiguy - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
I wonder if they improved those extremely reflective (and not bright enough) screens.... That was one of the reasons why I went with the notebook 9 last year instead of lg gram...hybrid2d4x4 - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
I'd be interested in the 13" version as long as they keep the price what I consider reasonable (ie: up to CDN$800 for the 8GB/256GB version). Wasn't mentioned in the article but backlit keys would be nice. Also, no "bilingual" keyboard layout for Canada please- have a separate SKUs for the French keyboard! (Hope someone at LG is reading this)IntelUser2000 - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
That's not what's considered reasonable nowadays. CDN $800 is US $620. Canadian pricing tends to be higher than exchange rates so $800cdn means $599usd or lower.$599 usd is mainstream to a value laptop.
euskalzabe - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
US $800 is what'd be reasonable for the 13" model, I'd say. Price would probably be closer to $1000 CDN.nerd1 - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
This is ultralight premium laptop - weight comparable to 12" macbook. I think you're asking too much if you expect that low price.hybrid2d4x4 - Saturday, December 16, 2017 - link
In retrospect, you guys are right, $1000 is a more reasonable target price for something like this.hybrid2d4x4 - Saturday, December 16, 2017 - link
I can't argue with that exchange rate, but for example, just a few days ago I saw an ad for a Dell 13" 5000-series (maybe 3000) with those specs for CDN$800, so I don't think it's completely out of line. If anything, regular price of CDN$1000 and occasional sale price $800-850 I'd be ok with. But I do take your point that that's not the reality anymore.My gripe is that now you have garbage rebranded Atoms (and soon, ARM) with eMMC trying to displace the "400-600" price laptops that traditionally were meh-to-crap build quality but good CPU/RAM and user-upgradable HDD.
nerd1 - Sunday, December 17, 2017 - link
Dell 5000 series are "affordable" lineup - how much does XPS 13 cost?Sliderpro93 - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
72wh battery? In under 1 kilo laptop? I hope it DOES have a screen right?digiguy - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
Samsung notebook 9 2018: 75wh in under 1kg....GC2:CS - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
Well actually that is crazy if we compare that to a MacBook which is full of batteries and rakes in at 2 pounds. Just 41,1 Wh and 195g. And a week before I considered that quite high in this space (the capacity).What they did there ? Made it out of cardboard so it seems light, have they removed the fan if there was any, or made the motherboard as an external acessory ?
I just wish this is that “batterevolution” of some breaktrough super dense batteries that is going to benefit everything. Or at least new method for battery packimg in notebooks.
digiguy - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
The 2017 model (Samsung) has a 33wh battery and weight 788gr (less than a surface pro without keyboard). I have opened it and man that motherboard is tiny. Also the metal the laptop is made of is very light, I think it's similar to that of the surface. There is a fan, but you have control over the thermals (you can toggle silent mode and it will throttle and be silent) or let the fun run when needed.nerd1 - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
They are using patented new battery (using carbon nanotubes or something), and custom litium-magnesium alloy to make both battery and case extremely light.Sliderpro93 - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
If it has LPDDR4 Ram + thunderbolt 3, (which it has to have) I see NO reason to even HAVE a desktop anymore, unless you use 1080-class GPU horsepower.There is 4 core CPU, there is ram, there is GPU possibility and it weights like a heavy tablet
I hope price is under 1500 for entry model. (Because for games top i7 won't make much sense because of power draw limitation, so ~3.4ghz/4 core would be decent enough, my desktop haswell I5 was ~3.4-3.6ghz)
Stochastic - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
Well, in a thin and light you're going to get a lot of throttling. You could run an 8700K at 4.8-5.0 Ghz all day, while as a system like this will probably throttle to 2-2.5 Ghz if you are pushing it hard.Samus - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
Power button in the top right corner, where delete or backspace should be, completely ruined the whole laptop. Can't believe they fuck this up on $1000 machines. Like it's acceptable to accidently put the machine to sleep or worse, shut it down, multiple times a day because they were too cheap to put a fucking button on the side of the machine.Unbelievable. I don't complain about much but this is an amazing trend in stupid industrial design.
nerd1 - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
It's exactly the same position as macbook, so it's justified :Dnicolaim - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
In defence of the Macbook one, a momentary press of the button doesn't do anything, so pressing it accidentally is no problem.Samus - Saturday, December 16, 2017 - link
I've noticed that, but that is an OS hook, because even Macbooks with a "real" power button react differently than Windows does. Microsoft does not accommodate this type of design. In Windows, when you push a power button, it sleeps/suspends or shuts down the system, whether it is momentary or what.Manch - Tuesday, December 19, 2017 - link
Windows had had the same thing since Vista LOL. Control Panel > Power Options > Choose what the power buttons do.I agree that a three column numpad is pointless, but I don't know what yall are on about in regards to the power button. Just change the function. I use the numpad on my ASUS a lot. Never hit the power button.
euskalzabe - Friday, December 22, 2017 - link
Glad someone other than me pointed this out. I always hear this complaint in Windows laptops. You know how many times I've seen that complaint on a Macbook review? Exactly zero. #biasIntelUser2000 - Friday, December 15, 2017 - link
It's not that stupid. The power button is recessed unlike the delete key. It'd take quite a force to press it.twtech - Saturday, December 16, 2017 - link
This sounded pretty good - until I saw the keyboard with a dreaded number pad.Off-centered keyboard is a deal killer. Can't effectively use it as an actual laptop.
Samus - Saturday, December 16, 2017 - link
I agree. The overall keyboard destroys the otherwise excellent machine. It's unbelievable so many companies mess up keyboards. It seems HP, Lenovo and Dell are the only PC makers (excluding Apple) that get it right. Literally everyone else fucks up the keyboard.DanNeely - Saturday, December 16, 2017 - link
It's worse than that, it's a 3 column abomination not a full pad; meaning it's unusable for the fraction of the market that does significant amounts of numeric entry and do want a numberpad.twtech - Sunday, December 17, 2017 - link
And on top of that, I notice that the touchpad isn't centered below the keyboard. Meaning that you're likely to end up resting your right palm on the touchpad surface, and end up accidentally moving the cursor and clicking while trying to type.It's too bad. The laptop looks pretty good other than that.
mpbello - Monday, December 18, 2017 - link
That and the lack of a trackpoint.Xajel - Saturday, December 16, 2017 - link
Strange as they should use the extra space provided by the larger screen to have a larger battery, in theory this can bring longer battery life even with the larger screen.. but they're using the exact same battery for all screen configuration making the larger screen having shorter battery life.