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0 pointsur-whale3y ago0 comments

>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.

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formerly_proven3y 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.

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