LG Gram 16 16T90P Convertible Review: Lighter Than Most 15.6-inch Laptops

The LG is much lighter than most 15.6-inch laptops or convertibles despite its larger 16-inch screen size. The Spectre x360 15, for example, is well over half a kilogram heavier. Overall dimensions are very similar to the MacBook Pro 16 albeit a hair thicker.

Transfer rates from the spring-loaded MicroSD card reader are similar to the card readers on previous Gram laptops to suggest that LG has made no changes or improvements here. For such an expensive laptop, we were hoping for faster speeds like on the XPS 15 or XPS 13 where MicroSD card transfer rates are two to three times faster.

Like all Gram laptops before it, the Gram 16 2-in-1 is not easily serviceable. The screws on the bottom are covered beneath stickers and glued rubber feet to dissuade user upgrades. This is a shame because the system comes with two M.2 2280 slots that owners could have easily exploited for additional storage.

The United States FCC has several images of the laptop motherboard available to the public.

The box includes a USB-C to HDMI adapter and an active stylus pen (ESP-201-21A-5) with battery and two extra pen tips. A cleaning cloth would have been a nice extra.

The standard one-year limited manufacturer warranty applies.

The clickpad is reasonably large (13.2 x 8.3 cm) with smooth traction and just a bit of friction to avoid feeling slippery. Meanwhile, its integrated click keys are shallow and with moderate feedback, but clatter is louder than expected. It's a reliable and pain-free trackpad so long as users aren't bothered by the audible click when pressing down.

Color space covers all of sRGB and 76 percent of AdobeRGB. Its volume, however, reaches beyond the AdobeRGB standard to signify a DCI-P3 target instead not unlike the Gram 16 clamshell. It's therefore very likely that LG is using the exact same IPS panel for both its Gram 16 clamshell and 2-in-1 models. This would also make the Gram 16 series one of the very few 16-inch laptops to offer DCI-P3 coverage with the MacBook Pro 16 being the most well known.

X-Rite colorimeter measurements show an overly cool color temperature out of the box and color accuracy subsequently suffers at lower saturation levels. Our calibration attempt brings down the color temperature to improve grayscale significantly. 

Outdoor visibility isn't as good as we had hoped. Generally, we believe that convertible laptops should have brighter displays than clamshells as owners would be more likely to use convertible laptops outdoors or on-the-go. The display on the LG Gram 16 2-in-1 isn't significantly brighter than the display on the Gram 15 clamshell which is disappointing to see. Glare is almost unavoidable as shown by the pictures below.

While single-thread performance is excellent, multi-thread performance is a mixed bag with results that are generally lower than the average Core i7-1165G7 laptop in our database. CineBench R15 xT, for example, is roughly 20 percent slower than expected due to the system's very short Turbo Boost potential. The Dell Inspiron 15 7506 2-in-1 and Asus VivoBook 15 each with the same Core i7-1165G7 CPU are able to consistently maintain faster CPU clock rates than our Gram convertible when under the same stressful benchmark conditions.

Despite the somewhat underwhelming processor performance, overall performance is still an upgrade over existing Gram laptops running on Ice Lake or older CPUs by wide margins.

PCMark results are excellent and within just a few percentage points of the average laptop in our database equipped with the same Core i7-1165G7 CPU. We experienced no software or hardware issues during our time with the test unit.