The portability in particular is a standout with this laptop. It’s not the smallest laptop going around, but it has reasonably slim bezels and an astonishingly light construction. The difference between this sub-1kg laptop and a typical 1.2 to 1.4 kg machine is immediately noticeable, and it’s amazing LG managed to include a 72 Wh battery inside without affecting this weight rating. However, and this is the case with almost every laptop out there, the Gram is not perfect. While there are many strengths, this laptop’s feature set is barebones: it’s missing Thunderbolt 3, a full-sized SD card reader, and a fast NVMe SSD. While the laptop is upgradeable, out of the box configurations are limited to just 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. We don’t think these things will be crucial omissions for a lot of prospective buyers, but if you want the ‘complete package’ you might want to look elsewhere.
As for pricing, you can get the base Core i5 model for under $1,000 and the Core i7 model for about $1,250. The Core i7 model is the best value, and both models are cheaper than similarly configured laptops like the Dell XPS 13 and Razer Blade Stealth. We still really like the ZenBook 13 UX331UN due to its discrete GPU, but the LG Gram 13 is undoubtedly a more portable option. We really wish LG offered an out of the box Core i7 configuration with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD; that’s often the sweet spot for high-end laptop hardware, but you can only achieve this through your own upgrades. With that said, the options LG does provide are still decent, and there’s enough value to make it a great buy, especially for those that crave portability. Shopping Shortcuts: Cons: No Thunderbolt 3, full-sized SD card slot, or NVMe SSD. Configurations limited to just 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD
