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  • Michael Bay - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    Jeesus, is there no black anymore.
  • michael2k - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    So they made it thinner and lighter than a 11" MBA, but put in a more powerful CPU and higher resolution display than the 13" MBA, with a smaller battery, smaller than even the 11" MBA. Not sure I agree with those tradeoffs.
  • Flunk - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    Not really a good comparison, people buy MacBooks because they want Macs. I would never consider one, but I might consider this. Actually I think I'd still rather have the Dell XPS 13, but I have to admit the price of the LG is better.
  • shadarlo - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    Why do you say this is a better price than the Dell? I was thinking the opposite, you get more bang for your buck from the Dell slightly?
  • protomech - Tuesday, September 29, 2015 - link

    http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pd...

    $900 for the 13" i5 with 4GB, 128GB.
    http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pd...

    You do get more battery though - 54 Wh rated at up to 15 hours. More weight and thickness too, about half a pound and 0.1". I'd make that tradeoff.
  • shadarlo - Tuesday, September 29, 2015 - link

    You linked the same twice :)

    Dell has the 8GB RAM XPS13 on their site with non-touch, that's the best deal out for that type of laptop atm, IMO.

    For people who don't need as much processor, but want more RAM/Storage for less money: $599: http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pd...
  • repoman27 - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    I'm not sure I agree that the i5-5200U and i7-5500U in these qualify as "more powerful" than the i5-5250U and i7-5650U that are in the MBA these days :-P

    And the tradeoff seems to be very much along the weight vs. battery life lines. The Gram 13 weighs 9% less than the 11-inch MBA but packs 8% less battery, and the Gram 14 weighs 27% less than the 13-inch MBA but has 35% less battery.

    It's also kind of amazing that LG only beats Apple price-wise by $50 to $100 for similarly specced machines. Yes, they offer a lot less bezel and a lot more (IPS) pixels in a similar form-factor, but it also happens to be a form-factor that Apple has been selling for nearly 8 years now. Plus the MacBook Air has GT3 graphics, ridiculously fast PCIe SSD storage available in up to 512 GB capacities, LPDDR3 RAM, DisplayPort 1.2 / Thunderbolt 2, and a really solid trackpad and keyboard.
  • OCedHrt - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    That's a very biased comparison. The battery doesn't make up the full weight of the notebook, and so a 8% battery reduction would not result in a 9% weight reduction. It would be < 8%, probably < 5%. So normalizing for battery, and increasing the screen size (and thus keyboard size), LG still reduced the weight.

    There's nothing special about the 13.3", as I've had one in that weight range for years. But the 14" is quite interesting. If the MacBook Air was 14" for its price with at least 1080p and the same weight, that would be great too. Unfortunately for that you'll need a MacBook and you'll see the weight is easily 30-50% higher.
  • repoman27 - Tuesday, September 29, 2015 - link

    Sorry, I was thinking more along the lines of the tradeoffs made by LG, not necessarily in the eyes of the consumer. I'm sure the screens in the Grams weigh more than those in the MBAs, so the chassis is definitely lighter overall (the screens got bigger through reducing bezel size, the keyboard width is essentially identical).

    My point was that LG set a weight target of under 1 kg and shaved battery to achieve that. Given a specific energy of 180 Wh/kg, the battery difference would account for 21 g on the Gram 13 and 108 g for the 14, before you account for any additional material required to create the interior volume to house that additional battery.
  • xthetenth - Tuesday, September 29, 2015 - link

    An actually decent monitor rather than a refugee from the year 2012 is a pretty huge upgrade well worth the loss of most/all of those for most cases (although to be honest I'd like the DP connector even if I had to keep the computer closed to hide the shame of a 1440x900 TN panel, but my ultrabook as ghetto desktop use case is a pretty rare one for very good reasons).
  • Flunk - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    That gold one is the tackiest thing I've seen in ages.
  • ingwe - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    Eh. Not sure I would want white though. Where is black or silver/grey?
  • Samus - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    HP zBook or the God Awful new Thinkpads...the XPS13 is "half-black" that is, Silver outside, Black inside.
  • kyuu - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    It all looked good until we got to the battery life. Not quite, LG. Not quite.
  • Samus - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    The other kicker is the 13" comes with less options while being the more attractive footprint. No 256GB SSD and no i7?
  • xthetenth - Tuesday, September 29, 2015 - link

    I'd think the 14" is the more attractive one, because it's further differentiated from other options, tbh. I can see the appeal of wanting a light computer and seeing how much screen size you can get.
  • Shadow7037932 - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    Seriously? They couldn't come up with something better than "Gram"?
  • xthetenth - Tuesday, September 29, 2015 - link

    It's a product very centered on weight, naming it after a very small weight seems pretty appropriate. Sure it might not be the sexiest name on its own, but it's highlighting the positive and describing the product well.
  • ingwe - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    Why can you only get the 13in one with a 128 GB hard drive? That is pretty crazy to me. Otherwise I might consider one of these for my next laptop despite the battery life and color.
  • uhuznaa - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    Carbon-Lithium? What the hell...
  • edzieba - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    Could be a filtered through a non-technical translator: Magnesium-Lithium alloys are becoming available and are starting to crop up in various laptops as an alternative to Magnesium alloys common in laptops (Mg-Zn and Mg-Al alloys).
  • satai - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    Looked great.. until battery life.
  • Daniel Egger - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    Looked great until it said Core i7-5xxx. Why the heck does LG announce a new line of Ultrabooks with an already outdated generation of CPUs just now?

    The only reason I bought that Zenbook last week is actually because the price was really a steal, most probably thanks to Skylake. Dell XPS13 is yummy but *really* pricey; the lowest end version with Linux is sometimes available for /just/ €150 more than a better equipped Zenbook; similar specs cost up to 60% more (ignoring both the inifinity display and the discrete NVidia GPU for the sake of argument).
  • protomech - Tuesday, September 29, 2015 - link

    Skylake mobile (15W) is due out shortly but not yet.
  • extide - Wednesday, September 30, 2015 - link

    No, the Skylake U series is out.
  • Spectrophobic - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    I actually welcome this tame gold colour as to oppose to the generic black, silver, and white colour scheme you see in 99% of laptops. I don't want one, but I think it's less gaudier than black and red that you see on gaming oriented laptops... well... anything gaming actually...

    That said, having only max 128GB and 256GB for their respective sizes along with the battery is unacceptable.

    Also, "gram". Why.
  • nerd1 - Tuesday, September 29, 2015 - link

    They named it gram because it was sub-1-kg and measured by grams.
  • xthetenth - Tuesday, September 29, 2015 - link

    Naming a product centered around having a very low weight after a very small weight seems quite appropriate, no? Get people thinking about your product's strongest suit so the evaluate based on your strengths.
  • DanNeely - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    Those screen bezels look like what the XPS13 should have been. Extremely narrow on the sides, but with enough space on the top for a normal webcam instead of a neckbeard and nosehair cam.
  • tim851 - Tuesday, September 29, 2015 - link

    But the giant bottom bezel ruins the looks. And tbh, I prefer symmetry. The XPS13 isn't completely symmetrical either, but at least 3/4 sides have the same width. Here, it's a mess.
  • SilthDraeth - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    LG actually has been making laptops for a while. But they are mainly available in Korea, or shipped in. My brother actually has what is probably one of these, but the South Korean model, as he lives in South Korea and works as a teacher.
  • nerd1 - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    They have been available in korean market since 2013 I think. I think they are at least better than new macbook while weighing almost the same.
  • coburn_c - Tuesday, September 29, 2015 - link

    Australia. They are just now bringing them to America, I think they would have been much more successful a year and a half ago, but it's still a great screen in a great package.
  • Gigaplex - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    "and there is also a micro USB connector which can be used with the included 10/100 Ethernet adapter. It would have been nice to see Gigabit here, but that can’t work on a micro USB port and LG must not have wanted to tie up one of the USB 3.0 ports"

    Why did they use a micro USB port? Type-C would be more appropriate and would work fine with gigabit.
  • mikedageek - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    Would be nice to see a dark gray version in the US. I'd totally get that despite the battery life. Also the white version that goes for $899 looks different on the sides, comparable to the Samsung ATIV, don't like that look.
  • flashbacck - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link

    Available today? Nice! Looking forward to reviews.
  • kspirit - Tuesday, September 29, 2015 - link

    One reminds me of the Ativ Book 9 design from the side. The other looks like the Elitebook Folio. The originals are some A+ designs. Let's how these stack up in the reviews. The battery tho :/
  • zdma - Tuesday, September 29, 2015 - link

    It may be slightly lighter than a Mac, but the construction is flimsy. Every review says the screen and keyboard bends like crazy. I have yet to see an Ultrabook that's light as a Macbook, and doesn't flex. Anyways, I think I'll get an iPad Pro ;)
  • cobrax5 - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link

    The Asus ZenBook UX305 (or something like that) offers a Broadwell CoreM, 8GB DDR3, 256GB SSD, and 1080P IPS for $700. I think it's the best deal for a passively cooled ultrabook (I'm a big fan of no moving parts). Although I haven't looked into it, this LG must be actively cooled, and that's great for "power" usage, but for normal office tasks, a passively cooled CoreM is enough. Besides I'd rather have a bigger SSD for $100 less...

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