The LG Gram 16 is the lightest, most long-lasting laptop I’ve ever used

When DHL dropped off the parcel that was supposed to contain my new laptop, I was very concerned that someone had forgot to pack it. The box was so light, it could have easily been empty for all I knew. Thankfully, after opening the box I was relieved to find a sleek, black device inside. Now, after about a week since I got my hands on the LG Gram 16 powered by the Intel Evo platform, I’ve been pretty surprised by how much I like this thing.

The first thing that struck me was the exceptional performance – despite the lack of discrete graphics. The Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics is a big boost in terms of graphical performance considering the lack of a dedicated GPU, and photo editing in Lightroom and Photoshop felt responsive and quick.

The 16-inch IPS panel produces a near-enough QHD image, and although choppy at times, video editing in Premiere Pro was impressive – especially for the size and weight of the device (only 1.2 kg). Aptly named the Gram, as that’s how heavy it feels in my lap as I type, 16GB of DDR4 RAM coupled up with 1TB of NVMe SSD storage made accessing and using large files a breeze – and I was able to render a 10-minute 1080p video in just under 25 minutes.

Photo taken with Focos

For some of the less fun items on my to-do list (namely, my 6000-word Film dissertation), the Gram has been an absolute dream to use. The keyboard is tactile and responsive, with good travel and feedback in the keys, and is backlit so I could see what I was typing during any late-night stints in Word.

Another impressive thing for me was the wake-from-sleep time – the laptop is consistently waking ready for use in under one second, and the discretely hidden fingerprint sensor (located in the power button) uses Windows Hello to speed up access to your laptop, whilst remaining extra secure.

I was able to switch from working at my desk to outside in the garden thanks to the addition of USB-C and Thunderbolt 4 ports – but what really blew me away whilst working there was the battery life. Even after a full day procrastinating on YouTube and Prime Video (clearing five episodes of Mr. Robot in the process), there was still another three hours of charge left in the battery, and in truth I didn’t charge it until the next morning.