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Looking for a new lightweight laptop with decent power and long battery life. So far, I'm thinking the LG Gram 15/17 (need to go physically look at them and see which feels best), Zenbook or Swift. But open to any other suggestions. Ideal weight range would be in the 2.5lb range, give or take.

  • Total budget and country of purchase: Not an issue, but not looking to go crazy. USA

  • Do you prefer a 2 in 1 form factor, good battery life or best specifications for the money? Pick or include any that apply. 2-1 sounds interesting, but not a necessity

  • How important is weight and thinness to you? VERY. My whole purpose is to be able to do programming(both front and back end stuff) as well as business applications - email, doc, spreadsheets, etc. Also, streaming/watching movies on a plane.

  • Which OS do you require? Windows, Mac, Chrome OS, Linux. If I can get everything done on Linux, that would be great. Been a Mac user for 15yrs now (Windows 15yrs prior) and happy with the OS, for the most part (love being able to type sms messages on the laptop. kind of a big thing). I's be open to going back to Windows if I absolutely have to.

  • Do you have a preferred screen size? If indifferent, put N/A. My eyes are getting worse, so 15-17. 15" feels to be a sweet spot. But I've heard that the LG Gram 17 actually feels like a 15, which sparked my interest.

  • Are you doing any CAD/video editing/photo editing/gaming? List which programs/games you desire to run. Some light video/music/photo editing. Maybe some CAD down the line, Maybe some gaming. But neither are on my radar for this.

  • If you're gaming, do you have certain games you want to play? At what settings and FPS do you want? N/A

  • Any specific requirements such as good keyboard, reliable build quality, touch-screen, finger-print reader, optical drive or good input devices (keyboard/touchpad)? Good keyboard, solid build quality. Enough power not to have the fans running all the time and depleting the battery.

  • Leave any finishing thoughts here that you may feel are necessary and beneficial to the discussion. Right now I am using a 2015 13" MBP. Does the job ok, but as mentioned, anything a little more and the fans go nuts. Also, screen is a little too small. Need more real estate for side by side programming, graphics editing, etc.

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I'm a big fan of what Acer has to offer in the thin and light department and their prices are good. Most come with backlit keyboards and easy upgrades like an open slot for a 2.5" drive with a small m.2 NVMe so if you are partial to say a Samsung 970 Evo plus you can pay less and upgrade to exactly what you want. I am interested in checking out the the 2nd screen glass trackpad on the Zenbooks though. One other thing I have heard is that the intergrated graphics on the AMD CPU'S are much better than the Intel graphics. Plus the latest laptop Ryzens are catching up performance wise as well, but still seem to cost less because the general public is still willing to pay more for Intel models. Amazon definitely has the Acer deals right now for black Friday.

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  • I like the Swift 5 series aside from not being able to upgrade RAM. I’ll have to check out the Samsung Evo’s. Any thoughts on the LG Gram?
    – trimonkeytri
    Nov 30, 2019 at 10:53
  • No experience with the LG Gram. I do always like to look for YouTube videos on upgrading a particular PC. I get a good sense of what is inside and how hard it is to to repair, build quality and value. I wouldn't buy a MS Surface laptop, even though they are good quality they cannot be home repaired or upgraded because they are glued shut. MS wouldn't want to cut into their bottom line with products that can last years longer with DIY upgradability.
    – Nater
    Dec 1, 2019 at 16:48
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I got two systems to compare

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LG Gram 17(17Z990-R.AAC9U1)

i7-8565U 1.8GHz CPU

16G mem

512G ssd hdd

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and the

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Swift 15"(SF515-51T).

i5 8265U 1.6GHz CPU

8G mem

256 G ssd hdd

============================

I wanted to compare the Swift and the LG side by side to see if the larger screen was worth it and to see the difference between the manufacturers.

Initial impressions so far:

  • I like the 17" screen, but can totally get by with the 15". I do like the more compact size of te 15 and am inclined to go that way

  • I like the weight of both. They are very close. 2.2lbs vs 2.9

  • Swift takes an edge on the keyboard feel as the LG has an offset keyboard. But honestly, it took about 5 mins to get used to the LG. One thing I do run into is there are some keys that are shortened on the LG. That's gonna take a little more getting used to. But all in all. Not a big issue for me

  • Both boot up from a cold start in about the same time. The Swift restarts about 10 seconds faster.

  • I like being able to brighten/darken the display and raise/lower/mute the sound all without having to press a Fn button.

  • The swift comes with a lot more bloatware.

  • I absolutely HATE having no control over the 30 second keyboard backlight timeout on the Swift. I had this on an old IBM back in the early 2000's and it was a royal pia in darker situations to have to hit a key and then backspace every time i wanted to see the keyboard. It's really annoying that they don't give that control to the user. Sadly, I was leaning towards the swift until I ran into this. It's a deal breaker for me.

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