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The current (2022) LG Gram come with Intel Alder Lake and dual USB4/TB4, they basically seem to be the only interesting competitors to the lightweight Apple lap

The current (2022) LG Gram come with Intel Alder Lake and dual USB4/TB4, they basically seem to be the only interesting competitors to the lightweight Apple laptops. The 14" model is 1.0 kg compared to the M1 Macbook Air at 1.3 kg. Linux compatibility is very good with current kernels (I had a few DRM/GuC restarts with 5.18, those seem to be fixed in 5.19), all hardware works out of the box. ADL-P power management is still being worked on afaik, so for the time being it seems like the power profile you set does have a larger than usual impact - powersave results in 20-30h runtime, balanced more like 10. The base models have a 1240P, which is an "4C8T + 8C8T" CPU (for a total of sixteen threads). The CNVi Intel wifi in these doesn't seem to have the 5G bug. Edit: One issue with virtually any better-ish new laptop will be that the display won't be native sRGB. The LG Gram series uses P3 displays, for example (most will be similar), which means that colors will be over-saturated and especially reds will be very intense and orange-y. MacOS has the correct color management to deal with this, Windows and Linux don't really, and Wayland in particular has very poor support for color management. I've manually set a generic P3 profile in Firefox and that pulls most colors back into a more agreeable shape.

ur-whale 4y ago
>The current (2022) LG Gram I use a 16 inches 2021 model (so an 11th gen Intel CPU instead of Alder Lake) on a daily basis both at the office and on the go, running Ubuntu 20.04LTS I really, really like it: - runs Linux out of the box - *extremely* lightweight - battery lasts forever even with CPU-hungry workloads, typically a full day. - very nice 16 inches hi-rez (2560 x 1600) screen - very comfortable keyboard and touchpad - supports an external 4k screen through USB-C without a sweat - super fast (especially if you install your OS on raid-0 dual SSD) - 4 12th gen cores (8 with hyperthreading on) - built-in GPU (Intel® Iris® Xe MAX Graphics) has enough oomph to run blender @ 4k with very large textured scenes There are however two minor downsides: - on my specific version (I believe the 2022 models have fixed this), built-in speakers don't seem work on Linux, only windows (the earphones jack works, just not the built-in speakers which Linux can't seem to control the volume of properly) - when the laptop is not on a flat surface and a bit twisted, the left click on the touch pad sometimes fails. All in all, I'd highly recommend this if - like me - you've given up on OSX in disgust and are looking for a serious dev machine.
- formerly_proven 4y ago
  On the 2022 version the speakers work out of the box. For the touchpad I prefer touch gestures instead of the mechanical clicking, but haven't noticed any issues so far. Gestures work really well on Linux (Fedora 36, KDE, not sure if it matters). Only pinch-to-zoom is bit janky at times, but 2D scrolling, one/two/three finger tapping, tap'n'drag and even switching fingers around for long drags all just works and is nice and smooth. Not missing a trackpoint. As far as external displays go, if I understand it correctly these can drive a total of three external displays, both of the USB-C/TB4 ports should have DP alt mode and MST besides the HDMI output. I'm honestly a bit surprised about the LG Gram series - you'd think there would be more talk about it. I didn't even know LG was making laptops, let alone such good ones; I only learned about them a few weeks ago by a random drive-by comment here on HN were someone mentioned them and that Linux just works, few weeks later I ended up having to buy a laptop on very short notice and remembered that comment.
gtirloni 4y ago
> Edit: One issue with virtually any better-ish new laptop will be that the display won't be native sRGB. The LG Gram series uses P3 displays, for example (most will be similar), which means that colors will be over-saturated and especially reds will be very intense and orange-y. I spent a week fine tuning Linux/Win11 with a new Dell monitor because reds were really weird. I know nothing about color management so it was really frustrating.
ivank 4y ago
Windows 10 and 11 can run https://github.com/ledoge/dwm_lut https://github.com/ledoge/dwm_lut ("applies 3D LUTs to the Windows desktop by hooking into DWM")
bengalister 4y ago
I was interested to buy the 14Z90Q since it ticked most of the boxes for me: lightweight, good battery life, TB4 ports, 12th gen cpu, not crazy expensive RAM upgrade, etc. The only downside on the specs was the screen brightness only 350 nits for the latest model. Also I read some negative comments on Amazon about CPU throttling that seems to be more aggressive than for other laptops. I don't have more information at which temperature throttling starts and to which frequency it goes, so it might be a false alarm but I would be interested to read owners comments.
antongribok 4y ago
I love my LG Gram 17 from 3.5 years ago (I think it's a 2018 model). Costco sells them, and when they go on sale, the value can't be beat IMHO. Great screen, amazing battery (even after 3 years), zero issues on Linux (Fedora), love the dual NVMe option. I'm thinking of upgrading to a 16" model, but I'll probably wait until another year. Edit to add: Costco now carries 14 different models.
AlanYx 4y ago
>The LG Gram series uses P3 displays, for example (most will be similar), which means that colors will be over-saturated and especially reds will be very intense and orange-y.... Wayland in particular has very poor support for color management. This is a big issue for me. Sway/wlroots in particular seems to have no standardized way to assign an ICC profile to a monitor (Gnome and KDE do have the option though), or at least not one I was able to figure out.

ur-whale 4y ago

>The current (2022) LG Gram I use a 16 inches 2021 model (so an 11th gen Intel CPU instead of Alder Lake) on a daily basis both at the office and on the go, running Ubuntu 20.04LTS I really, really like it: - runs Linux out of the box - *extremely* lightweight - battery lasts forever even with CPU-hungry workloads, typically a full day. - very nice 16 inches hi-rez (2560 x 1600) screen - very comfortable keyboard and touchpad - supports an external 4k screen through USB-C without a sweat - super fast (especially if you install your OS on raid-0 dual SSD) - 4 12th gen cores (8 with hyperthreading on) - built-in GPU (Intel® Iris® Xe MAX Graphics) has enough oomph to run blender @ 4k with very large textured scenes There are however two minor downsides: - on my specific version (I believe the 2022 models have fixed this), built-in speakers don't seem work on Linux, only windows (the earphones jack works, just not the built-in speakers which Linux can't seem to control the volume of properly) - when the laptop is not on a flat surface and a bit twisted, the left click on the touch pad sometimes fails. All in all, I'd highly recommend this if - like me - you've given up on OSX in disgust and are looking for a serious dev machine.

formerly_proven 4y ago
On the 2022 version the speakers work out of the box. For the touchpad I prefer touch gestures instead of the mechanical clicking, but haven't noticed any issues so far. Gestures work really well on Linux (Fedora 36, KDE, not sure if it matters). Only pinch-to-zoom is bit janky at times, but 2D scrolling, one/two/three finger tapping, tap'n'drag and even switching fingers around for long drags all just works and is nice and smooth. Not missing a trackpoint. As far as external displays go, if I understand it correctly these can drive a total of three external displays, both of the USB-C/TB4 ports should have DP alt mode and MST besides the HDMI output. I'm honestly a bit surprised about the LG Gram series - you'd think there would be more talk about it. I didn't even know LG was making laptops, let alone such good ones; I only learned about them a few weeks ago by a random drive-by comment here on HN were someone mentioned them and that Linux just works, few weeks later I ended up having to buy a laptop on very short notice and remembered that comment.

gtirloni 4y ago

> Edit: One issue with virtually any better-ish new laptop will be that the display won't be native sRGB. The LG Gram series uses P3 displays, for example (most will be similar), which means that colors will be over-saturated and especially reds will be very intense and orange-y. I spent a week fine tuning Linux/Win11 with a new Dell monitor because reds were really weird. I know nothing about color management so it was really frustrating.

ivank 4y ago

Windows 10 and 11 can run https://github.com/ledoge/dwm_lut https://github.com/ledoge/dwm_lut ("applies 3D LUTs to the Windows desktop by hooking into DWM")

bengalister 4y ago

I was interested to buy the 14Z90Q since it ticked most of the boxes for me: lightweight, good battery life, TB4 ports, 12th gen cpu, not crazy expensive RAM upgrade, etc. The only downside on the specs was the screen brightness only 350 nits for the latest model. Also I read some negative comments on Amazon about CPU throttling that seems to be more aggressive than for other laptops. I don't have more information at which temperature throttling starts and to which frequency it goes, so it might be a false alarm but I would be interested to read owners comments.

antongribok 4y ago

I love my LG Gram 17 from 3.5 years ago (I think it's a 2018 model). Costco sells them, and when they go on sale, the value can't be beat IMHO. Great screen, amazing battery (even after 3 years), zero issues on Linux (Fedora), love the dual NVMe option. I'm thinking of upgrading to a 16" model, but I'll probably wait until another year. Edit to add: Costco now carries 14 different models.

AlanYx 4y ago

>The LG Gram series uses P3 displays, for example (most will be similar), which means that colors will be over-saturated and especially reds will be very intense and orange-y.... Wayland in particular has very poor support for color management. This is a big issue for me. Sway/wlroots in particular seems to have no standardized way to assign an ICC profile to a monitor (Gnome and KDE do have the option though), or at least not one I was able to figure out.