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LG Gram 15 Laptop is ultralight and ultraportable

Teaser
The Gram 15Z90N is another entry in LG’s Gram series. Under the hood, there is now the Ice Lake-based CPU with the Iris Plus Graphics. This combination offers significantly more GPU performance at the expense of some battery life.

The 2020 model of the LG Gram 15Z90N comes with the Core i5-1035G7, retiring the 2018 model's Intel Core i7-8550U. However, the positive aspects such as an extremely low weight are still there. The Gram 15 has a weight of 1.1 kilogrammes (2.43 lbs), which is unrivalled in this product segment. The high quality device is not cheap, though. Prospective buyers will have to shell out 1400 Euros ($1582) if they are to have the device. The laptop has 8 GB of (soldered-in) RAM and a 512 GB SSD. Users can install a second RAM module, because there is an empty SO-DIMM slot inside the device. An empty M.2 slot also means that the laptop can have two SSDs installed at the same time.

In the benchmarks, the SoC performed almost as well as the Intel Core i7-8550U, but only in short-term workloads. In the multi-core Cinebench R15 loop, the Ice Lake-based processor could not keep up with the older chip. It performed about 20 % worse. In system benchmarks, we saw a different picture emerge. The 2020 model handily beat the 2018 model of the LG Gram 15. We had the same impression during our review, because the device always felt snappy and highly responsive. The 2020 LG Gram 15 comes with a Wi-Fi 6 module, which is why it performs better in Wi-Fi benchmarks. Nevertheless, the Gram 15 was beaten by other competing devices with Wi-Fi 6 modules.

Because the LG Gram 15 is now freely available in Germany and Austria, there should not be any issues associated with importing devices from overseas. Now the device comes with the QWERTZ keyboard layout. After some getting used to, typing on the keyboard is quite pleasurable. The inclusion of the numeric pad will be a big plus for those who often work with numbers.

We have already mentioned the improvement in GPU performance that the Intel Iris Plus Graphics G7 provides compared to the Intel UHD Graphics 620 at the beginning of this piece. However, buyers should ground their expectations, because the LG Gram 15 is and remains an ultraportable business laptop. The device scores some major points with its large 80-Wh battery, which lasts over ten hours in our practical battery test. The low system noise ensures a quiet working environment. During normal operation, the device does not produce any noise at all.

LG Gram 15Z90N
LG Gram 15Z90N
LG Gram 15Z90N
LG Gram 15Z90N
LG Gram 15Z90N
LG Gram 15Z90N
LG Gram 15Z90N
LG Gram 15Z90N

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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > Reviews > LG Gram 15 Laptop is ultralight and ultraportable
Sebastian Bade, 2020-07-14 (Update: 2020-07-12)