LG Gram 14 (2022) laptop review: Sleek, lightweight & economical

Competitors of the Gram 14 include other 14-inch laptops with a weight of less than 1.5 kg (~3.3 lbs) such as the Dell Latitude 7420 or the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Pro 14 and IdeaPad 5 Pro 14. We also include last year's model for comparison purposes.

Visually, not much has changed in terms of the case. However, LG now uses a more delicate font for the key legends and a rubber bar instead of round rubber feet on the back of the case to improve the stability. The build quality of the new chassis is excellent. Although the surfaces, which consist of a magnesium alloy according to the manufacturer, feel more like plastic than metal, the Gram 14 looks fairly premium.

That being said, users should not expect too much in terms of the rigidity. Under a moderate amount of pressure, both the center of the keyboard and the touchpad area yield noticeably. Similarly, the lid is not very resistant against twisting attempts from the corners. Regardless, most users should still regard the rigidity as still acceptable for a laptop this thin. The design of the Gram 14 warrants no criticism. The thin look (height of just 16.8 mm or ~0.62 in), small bezels, decisive desing language and the white color scheme make the 14-inch device very attractive.

The low weight is the LG Gram's biggest strength. 980 g (~2.16 lb) makes for a very lightweight device, which makes its competitors look outdated and heavy at 1.3-1.4 kg (~2.87-3.09 lb). Barely any laptop is as portable as the Gram 14.

Ports

The port selection is similar to that of the previous model. While an audio jack, an HDMI output (with an unspecified version), and two USB 4 type-C ports with Power Delivery and DisplayPort or Thunderbolt 4 occupy the left side, a microSD card reader, two traditional USB 3.2 type-A ports, and a Kensington lock are located on the right. Since the ports are near the back on both sides, there should be no interferring cables when using an external mouse.

The performance of the card reader is fairly average. At almost 70 MB/s when transferring photos, one might confuse our test device with the Lenovo IdeaPad 5 Pro 14. Only the Dell Latitude 7420 is able to significantly outperform its peers (almost 200 MB/s).

An Intel module handles wireless networking. In combination with our new Asus reference router (for which we do not have results from competitors), the Wi-Fi 6E AX211 reaches an excellent range. A transfer rate of 1700 Mb/s when receiving data from a distance of 1 m (~3.28 ft) warrants no criticism.

Unfortunately, the webcam is not quite as good as the Full HD resolution suggests. While the higher resolution results in a slightly better sharpness compared to many competitors, it falls short overall in terms of the image quality (e.g. due to poor color accuracy).

Aside from some paperwork, the laptop also comes with a 65-watt charger that is not only very compact (~9.5 x 6 x 2.5 cm / ~3.74 x 2.36 x 0.98 in), lightweight (~230 g / ~0.51 lb), and beautifully rounded-off, but also matches the white chassis.

Since the screws on the bottom plate are hidden beneath (glued) rubber parts, we decided against opening the device (device courtesy of a store). Teardown videos, which show the internals of the Gram 14 are available on YouTube.

There are no real surprises when it comes to the touchpad - and that is a good thing. At around 11 x 7 cm (~4.33 x 2.76 in), it is sufficiently large for a 14-inch laptop. Thanks to the smooth surface, it offers good gliding properties while being comfortable to use. The integrated buttons on the bottom half of the pad offer a moderate haptic feedback. Similar to the keyboard, the key clatter is definitely noticeable. Furthermore, the clickpad could have been stiffer near the corners, where it can be pushed relatively far into the case. The supported multi-touch gestures work reliably most of the time. We found no issues with the precison of inputs, either..

In terms of the display, LG once again uses one of its own models. Both professional users and outdoor enthusiasts should be pleased with LG's decision to replace the glossy panel of the older model with a matte version.

In terms of the performance, the LG Gram 14 is a mid-range device. The manufacturer uses a balanced combination of components, which - outside of gaming and other 3D applications - make the ultrabook fairly flexible.

The CPU performance is disappointing while using the normal mode. Even though the Core i5-1240P is nominally significantly faster than the older Core i5-1165G7, its benchmark results are only slightly higher. This is very surprising, since the Alder Lake model doubles the 11th gen CPU's 8 threads (the 4 performance cores support hyper-threading).

For significantly better results, the Gram 14 has to be set to the thermal profile "high", which dramatically increases the performance. 1500 instead of 950 points in Cinebench R15 Multi-Thread represents an improvement of almost 60 %. However, this still puts the Gram 14 behind the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Pro, which is equipped with the same CPU. It seems like the cooling solution of the Gram 14 is at its limit with the Core i5-1240P.

The poor CPU performance is not apparent from the system performance results. With 5049 points in PCMark 10, our test device places second behind the Yoga Slim. Note that the storage speed significantly impacts this benchmark.

Provided the SSD is not stressed continuously (there were large fluctuations during prolonged testing), the installed 512-GB Samsung drive performs well. In this category, the LG Gram 14 is the fastest device in our comparison according to our performance rating. In the DiskSpd benchmark, the SK Hynix SSD from last year's model falls behind significantly.