The LG Gram 14: Is This the Perfect Travel Laptop?
Thin-and-light Windows laptops, or Ultrabooks, have been around for a long time. While we’ve seen some truly excellent products in this category, they’ve often been expensive and struggled to compete with the battery life of Apple’s MacBook laptops. But with Intel’s 12th Gen processors promising a major leap forward in battery life and efficiency, particularly for laptops based on the updated Evo platform, this could be changing. We’ve already seen an example of this with the Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360, and today, we’re taking a look at the LG Gram 14 (14Z90Q).
LG’s premium Gram series is known for its impressive feature set, good specifications, and most importantly, its promise of 20+ hours of battery life. Available in three screen sizes, we’re reviewing the most compact 14-inch model, which weighs less than 1kg. With all the ingredients for a perfect travel laptop, is the LG Gram 14 actually the real deal?
LG Gram 14 (14Z90Q) price in India
The LG Gram 14 variant we’re reviewing is the top-end model (14Z90Q-G.AH75A2) equipped with a Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. It has an MRP of Rs. 1,49,000 in India but is officially available at a market price of Rs. 1,05,999 (and even slightly less during sales). There’s also a Core i5 variant of the Gram 14 with 8GB of RAM, but the same SSD storage. LG offers additional variants of the Gram 16 and Gram 17 laptops (with 16-inch and 17-inch screens respectively) that cost slightly more.
The LG Gram 14 boasts a MIL-STD-810G certification for ruggedness.
LG Gram 14 (14Z90Q) design
Available only in black, the LG Gram 14 has a very minimalistic design. The whole laptop has a matte finish with sharp lines and just a ‘Gram’ logo in chrome on the lid. LG has rounded off the edges to ensure comfortable holding and lap use.
The first impression upon opening the box is the incredible lightness of the device. LG claims a weight of 999g, but my kitchen scale measured it at a slightly lighter 967g. The Gram 14 is incredibly slim when closed, measuring just 16.8mm. It’s only slightly wider than the new M2 MacBook Air but feels significantly more compact and portable thanks to its lower weight.
The LG Gram 14 uses a 14-inch IPS display with a full-HD (1920×1200 pixels) resolution and a 60Hz refresh rate. The 16:10 aspect ratio provides extra vertical space, and the DCI-P3 colour profile, used by default, delivers rich and vibrant colours. An anti-glare matte finish minimizes reflections from bright light sources. The Gram 14’s screen boasts slim bezels on all four sides while still incorporating a webcam and an IR camera for Windows Hello above the display.
The LG Gram 14 features two USB 4 Type-C ports and two USB Type-A ports.
The base of the LG Gram 14 feels like plastic, but the keyboard deck is crafted from a single piece of metal. For a 14-inch laptop, I’m truly impressed by the number of ports LG has managed to squeeze in. On the left, there’s a full-sized HDMI output, two USB 4 Type-C (with Thunderbolt 4) ports, and a headphone jack. The right side houses two USB 3.2 Type-A ports, a microSD card slot, and a Kensington lock slot. I doubt many users would need a USB hub with this laptop unless a full-sized SD card slot is essential. LG includes a Type-C to Ethernet adapter in the box.
The keyboard on the LG Gram 14 features well-spaced keys with two levels of white backlighting. The keys could have been slightly larger, but I adapted to them after a few days. The direction keys are separated from the rest of the keyboard, making them easy to find and use. The power button is almost flush with the frame, preventing accidental presses, which is a welcome design choice. There’s no fingerprint sensor embedded, but that’s fine as face recognition is available. The Gram 14 has just two white status LEDs: one by the power button and the other between the two Type-C ports. The trackpad is sufficiently sized, and tracking is smooth.
LG Gram 14 (14Z90Q) specifications and software
The LG Gram 14 we’re reviewing boasts an Intel Core i7-1260P processor with a total of 12 CPU cores and support for 16 threads. The CPU comprises four performance cores with a max turbo frequency of 4.7GHz and eight efficiency cores with a max turbo frequency of 3.4GHz. The processor incorporates integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics, and the Gram 14 lacks any dedicated GPU. There’s 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM and a 512GB NVMe M.2 SSD. The laptop also features Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.1, two 1.5W speakers for stereo sound, and a 2.1-megapixel full-HD webcam.
The LG Gram 14 is MIL-STD-810G certified for durability and ruggedness, meaning it should withstand various temperature extremes and shocks from accidental drops. The laptop features a 72Wh battery and comes with a 65W USB PD (Type-C) charging adapter.
LG has preinstalled several interesting first-party apps on the Gram 14.
Our LG Gram 14 unit came running Windows 11 Home. A significant number of third-party software programs are preinstalled, including 30-day trials of Microsoft Office 365 and McAfee Live Safe, the DTS X:Ultra app, PCMover Professional, and a suite of Cyberlink programs such as ColorDirector and Audio Director.
LG also bundles some of its own apps like Smart Assistant, a well-designed app for customizing system and battery settings, and Virtoo by LG, which allows file transfers and text message sending/receiving through your phone. The latter didn’t work flawlessly with an iPhone. While I could view my photo library using the Windows app, text message syncing was unavailable.
Another interesting app is Glance by Mirametrix, which tracks your presence via the webcam to automatically pause videos when you look away, resume playback upon your return, and blur the screen if you walk away or another face is detected, preventing unauthorized viewing. These features worked well during my testing and didn’t significantly impact battery life.
LG Gram 14 (14Z90Q) performance and battery life
I used the LG Gram 14 for work, watching movies, and catching up on TV shows, and the experience throughout my review period was very positive. The display boasts excellent viewing angles, and the 350 nit brightness is sufficient for indoor use. My only complaint is that I wish I could have dimmed the brightness lower than the minimum level as the screen can be a bit too bright in a dark room. Colors are rich and slightly too vibrant, not a problem for videos, but this isn’t the most color-accurate display for professional work.
The LG Gram 14 features an IR camera for Windows Hello authentication.
I found the keyboard on the LG Gram 14 to be very good for typing. The keys have good travel and are not noisy. The backlighting is even and not distracting at night. The Gram 14 showed no signs of overheating during casual workloads, with only a small area on the bottom, near the vents, becoming slightly warm. The laptop ran silently while performing most tasks, and even at the highest fan speed setting, only a faint hum was audible.
Benchmark numbers were also impressive. The LG Gram 14 achieved 468 and 2,250 points in Cinebench R20’s single-core and multi-core CPU tests, respectively. The laptop scored 5,120 in PCMark 10 and 12,992 in 3DMark’s Night Raid test scene for integrated graphics. Real-world tests also yielded good results. It took just 2 minutes, 9 seconds to compress a 3.76GB folder of assorted files using 7zip. Rendering the BMW test scene in Blender took 9 minutes, 7 seconds, and encoding a 1.3GB AVI file to a 720p H.265 MKV file in Handbrake took 58 seconds.
In Geekbench 5’s single-core and multi-core tests, the LG Gram 14 scored 1,034 and 3,151 points respectively. To put this into perspective, Apple’s M1 SoC in the 2020 MacBook Air scored 1,749 and 7,728 points respectively.
The LG Gram 14 is not designed for gaming, but it can handle casual titles from the Microsoft Store like Asphalt 9: Legends if you need to pass the time. Simple games from Steam should also be playable. Fortnite ran at 1080p using the Medium visual preset, but it was not without stutters and jerks. Lowering the resolution improved smoothness. This game also caused the base of the Gram 14 to become very hot, making it uncomfortable to use on my lap after a while.
The LG Gram 14 is based on the Intel Evo platform.
Media looks good on the LG Gram 14’s display, but the same cannot be said for the sound from the stereo speakers. Even at high volume and with the DTS X: Ultra enhancement enabled, the sound was muffled and unclear. The webcam produced decent video quality for calls, and even in dim lighting, there wasn’t excessive noise or distortion.
The LG Gram 14 delivers exceptionally good battery life for such a slim and light Windows laptop. I managed to complete a full work day on a single charge and still had about 20 percent remaining on average. LG’s claimed battery life is likely unrealistic for real-world usage, but I believe most users will be satisfied with 8-10 hours of runtime from a laptop that weighs less than 1kg. In the stressful Battery Eater Pro benchmarking app, the Gram 14 lasted for 3 hours, 45 minutes, which is very good. Fully charging the laptop took less than two hours, and you can achieve up to 58 percent charge in an hour using the included charger.
Verdict
The LG Gram 14 makes for a fantastic work laptop as it is compact and light, performs well, and has excellent battery life. The stereo speakers are its only significant weakness, and other than that, there’s little to complain about. The laptop also offers a good selection of ports, a crisp and vibrant display, and some useful software. The Core i7 variant is a bit pricey, but you can always opt for the lower variant to suit your budget.
While many laptops on the market are based on the Intel Evo platform, few come close to the Gram 14’s ultra-low weight, which truly sets it apart. Apple’s M1-based MacBook Air remains a strong contender at this price level, but if you need a Windows 11 machine, the LG Gram 14 is an excellent alternative.
