LG has released its first-ever notebook in the US market – and it’s lighter than the Macbook Air, at 980g (compared to 1.1kg).
Three models have been released: the Gram 13 (13.3″) and two editions of the Gram 14 (14″). The body is built using carbon-lithium and carbon-magnesium – which, LG notes, is also used to construct race cars and spacecraft!
As Windows 10 models, the notebooks run Cortana and Microsoft Edge. They are also all ‘Microsoft Signature Edition’ laptops, meaning that they are not supplied with ‘bloatware’, and are fully virus-protected. The units will be sold through Microsoft stores and Amazon.
All three models feature a ‘reader mode’, which lowers blue light emitted. They are built with IPS panels, with 1920 x 1080 resolution, and use Intel HD Graphics 5500.
Both the 13.3″ 13Z950-A.AA3WU1 and one of the 14″ models (14Z950-A.AA3GU1) use 2.2Ghz Intel Core i5 processors and 128GB SSDs. The other (14Z950-A.AA4GU1) uses a Core i7 processor and a 256GB SSD. All have 8GB of RAM.
HDMI, USB 3.0 (x2), microSD and RJ45 ports are featured, as well as two 1W speakers. The 4,555mAh battery will last for up to 7.5 hours.
LG’s new Gram notebooks are on sale in the USA now. They cost $900 (13Z950-A.AA3WU1), $1,000 (14Z950-A.AA3GU1) and $1,400 (14Z950-A.AA4GU1).
Analyst Comments
I heard recently that Vaio, the PC group that spun out of Sony, will start to ship notebooks, also through the Microsoft store in the US. We also heard recently that both HP and Dell are selling the Microsoft Surface PC. At the tactical level, this makes sense – Microsoft has some impressive hardware and neither Dell nor HP have a directly competitive model, that we are aware of. However, reinforcing Microsoft’s hardware business by selling its products would seem to be contrary to Dell & HP’s long term interests. Could there be some “quid pro quo” deal between Microsoft and the companies i.e. “help us with this one and we’ll do something different in the long term?”. (BR)
