I’m not a big fan of replacing my laptop on a frequent basis. For years, I’ve had the oldest machine in the company so after nearly 7 years it started to crash regularly – I figured it was time to start looking. Several years ago, I replaced my hard drive with an SSD drive which made my aging laptop MUCH faster so if you are not ready to buy a new computer yet, take the plunge on a new SSD drive (and any machine you buy going forward get an SSD drive!). See this blog article Speed up your Computer by 5X or More to learn more about SSD drives.
On to my new laptop. My old laptop had a 14” screen and since my old man eyes need bigger these days, I wanted to get something with a larger standard 15.6” screen. I wanted to get the largest screen I could find in the lightest laptop available so I started my search to see if there was such a beast. I did not care too much about the tech details since any new business type laptop will have more oomph than what most people need. I will not be doing games or anything super high demand so I didn’t need to worry about the process, graphics card, etc. details. I was looking for light (I carry it around in my backpack), big screen, and a SSD drive. Oh, and I didn’t want to spend a ton of dough either.
I ended up getting a LG Gram 15 with a touch screen. Who knew that LG made laptops….
The Good
- Only 2.4 pounds! This thing is super light and almost feels like a fake laptop while it feels solid enough that it will not break easily.
- Has a big bright 15.6” touch screen with almost no bezel.
- Super thin at only ½ inch thick.
- Very quiet. At times a little fan will kick on but you can hardly hear it.
- Comes with 8 gigs of ram which is more than I will ever need.
- Comes with a 256 gig SSD drive which is more than I will ever need.
- Has a 10-hour battery life which is more than I need.
- Instant on when you open the lid. This is great. You open the lid and within 2 seconds you are ready to login (this is with the machine in sleep mode already).
- The keyboard has a number pad if that is an interest for you.
- It has ports! Many laptops in this range do not have ports (like Apple). This machine has USB, including a USB C that can even charge the laptop, HDMI, and micro SD slot.
- The power adapter is small and pretty light; I picked up an extra generic one for only 18 bucks.
The Not So Good
- The webcam is located at the bottom of the screen by the keyboard. Not the best place, but I guess there is no other spot since the screen have a super small bezel.
- The screen is not very “solid” and is bendable. Just a bit scary seeing the screen bend at times but never feels like it is going to break.
- Only comes in a goldish color. Not bad per se. Just different from the usual black or silver.
- Claims a 10-hour battery life but more like 7 hours in the real world.
- No backlit keyboard which is not a big deal for me.
In the end, the LG Gram 15 was the laptop for me. The positives far outweigh the negatives which are all minor for me. I had originally gravitated to the Dell XPS 15 which looked good and had higher end tech, but it was also twice the weight and I did not care much about the tech specs. I also considered machines from HP, Lenovo, and Samsung. Luckily, I found a review of the LG Gram 15 and the lightness factor drew me in. One article said that someone created a scale model of this laptop in paper and it ended up weighing the same as the real thing. Pretty darn cool!
Have any questions or want to get a second opinion about anything in your IT world? Shoot me an email or give me call at 630-547-7011. Glad to help if I can.
