Weight Comparison
| Model | Weight (grams) | Screen Size |
|---|---|---|
| LG Gram Pro 16 (2026) | 1,199 | 16-inch |
| MacBook Air 15 (M4/M3) | 1,510 | 15-inch |
| MacBook Pro 14 (M5/M3) | 1,550-1,600 | 14-inch |
| MacBook Pro 16 (M3+) | 2,140-2,200 | 16-inch |
Meanwhile, I just got a cooling pad for my $800 laptop with a RTX 4060 that makes it bulkier and heavier, but 20C cooler when doing Blender renders. The sleek $3000 MacBook Pro I got from work would only render at half the speed, though it wouldn’t need the cooling pad. As long as I can work from the sofa or bed on a reasonably powerful machine, it’s not worth almost quadrupole the price for thinner and lighter, especially with less muscle.
Have you looked into streaming from a desktop? I’m using sunshine/moonlight to stream my video editor from gaming PC to Thinkpad and it works really well! The quality and responsiveness is really good these days to the point where it’s hard to even tell it’s a stream.
When you say stream you mean remote desktop, right?
The functionally, not the product, yes. Sunshine and moonlight is a more performant alternative to native remote desktop (rdp).
Yes I meant functionally ie I meant remote desktop generically rather than RDP. Can I think of sunshine & moonlight as just another alternative to VNC (except better performer?).
I would say so, yes.
(I’m not the original commented, but I do use them too.)
They came to be after Nvidia published their gaming streaming as an open source alternative. Nvidia dropped their product. Sunshine and moonlight still actively develop.
Personally, I use them to stream my desktop to TV, for desktop, watching stuff, and sometimes gaming.
I’ve used them quite a lot to stream games from a PC to a Steam Deck and a Nvidia Shield and agreed that the 2 projects are fantastic.
But… Do we need laptops any lighter than this? Like, I’m not moving around my 13 inch Macbook and thinking: “oh god this is a beast”. My biggest issue with laptops now days is battery life and performance, both of which my Macbook meets perfectly. Not that I like the OS or the company tbh, especially as a FOSS enthusiast.
It’s one of my main criteria for my next personal laptop. I commute very frequently and travel between 2 homes, most of the time by bike and public transportation. I want to carry as light as possible.
I have a tablet but it’s nowhere near the flexibility of a Linux laptop.
Weight is definitely old of those things that you only notice when you notice but it’s still just a nice to have rather that critical feature. Like a more ergonomic keyboard etc. Many good parts make a good machine.
Yes. Weight reduction in one place means they can increase weight in other, like battery density or heftier components (are chips and heatsinks major contributors to weight?) without affecting total weight. Same way making a phone thinner allows you to add more battery.
I just bought an old thinkpad (x280) and i’m delighted how much lighter it is than my 16” mbp
Other people apart from you also buy laptops.
Macbook Air isn’t just about the weight, the processor/horsepower are a draw. I have to wonder if LG can compete with Apple’s performance, rather than just making a lighter laptop. The Macbook Air is already quite light. The Macbook Pro is a beast.
I’m not going to buy anything from LG any more. My ongoing battle against my own LG TV’s enshittification (forced ads and AI everywhere, getting worse every update) has soured my opinion on LG. They can go to hell.
Easy workaround, don’t ever let your TV access the internet.
Well the problem is we only use the TV for streaming and my partner wants Netflix and other commercial stuff. Which means I would have to connect another internet device to the TV where the same problem happens again. Going exclusively Jellyfin or whatever is not a solution at this time
I have a steam deck and I stream from it directly to the TV. I pirate all my Netflix shows
A Chromecast is not full of ads, but are they all just Google TV now? Is Google TV full of ads? I haven’t used one.
Could be an option to reset your TV, disconnect it from the Internet, and buy & use a Google TV device instead. The streaming devices seem to have far fewer ads and shit than TV manufacturers cram into their devices nowadays.
The hoops we have to jump through to minimise surveillance capitalism… I see elsewhere in the thread you’ve had to use a PiHole to block most of the TVs traffic.
Yeah… I have older 4k Roku devices luckily, they don’t have microphones and I can opt out of ads.
You can opt out of ads on a Roku? Last I checked (like 4 years ago) ads were anywhere in the OS.
May be different depending on regulation/country?
Easy workaround if you have a stb that has AV1 compatibility or pirated content to stream locally
Really? I thought LG was known for making the least smart TVs. I bought one not too long ago and I haven’t noticed a single smart feature.
I had to setup a custom pihole LG blacklist to keep it from displaying ads in the menu. And LG is well known for spying on their customers in the worst way possible
Rectally?
Seriously though, screen grabs are bullshit. Fuck those guys.
I agree, LG is a pretty awful brand all around but I really like the idea of new lighter materials used in consumer hardware. Moving away from plastics to metal frames has been nothing but a fashion mistake.
I’ve actually always liked the solid feel of Macbooks. There are lighter laptops out there, but few if any feel as solid.
If you want a heavy brick that doesn’t need to move around, then buy a desktop for the power.
If you want a heavy brick that does need to move around, then buy a Think Book so that it can survive a fall.
And if you want a light laptop that’s easy to carry around, then buy a Gram so that it can survive a fall and do basic 2007 things like include a numpad.
MacBooks heavy feel is literally just them overcharging you for something brittle. It’s like being charged more for furniture because it’s heavy only to find outs it’s made with MDF.
Macbooks have decent chips that are limited by Apple’s crappy software, a flat out badly designed OS, nice screens, and way too much weight for their utility.
ThinkBooks are super cheap crap, you mean ThinkPads. Lenovo is diluting the brand.
I worked as a refurb tech. Even the T and X seriess Thinkpads regularly came in with cracks, holes in the corners, etc. Macs would come in dented too, but never did I see a hole in one.
I do also have a desktop. And I move my laptops around, I just don’t drop them on pavement.
I’m also not disabled so I’m not sure why I need the lower weight for carrying a laptop around.
Hard disagree, macbooks have some of the most unergonomic and awful frame design. The sharp corner alone are just so peak stupidity.
I think people fall for “heavy == quality” falacy way too often here especially since the aluminum frame is actually worse at protecting the internals.
If I remember correctly, Beats headphones (and many other consumer portable electronics) have been found to have pieces of metal (or even concrete) attached inside their housings to add weight and the feeling of “solid”
I just like the rigidity. I hate bendy laptops.
Why would I need the internals protected? Like most laptops, none of mine move around a lot. If I worked out in the field, I’d get something actually tough, sure. But I don’t need a Toughbook.
You need internals protected from basic shock. Macbooks are notoriously very poor regarding drops while you can play volleyball with a plastic thinkpad.
Just don’t drop your laptop lmao, how hard can it be?
I’ve never dropped my Thinkpad even, and those are actually easier to accidentally trip over since they don’t have Magsafe.
Also I’ve seen hundreds of dented Macbooks work completely fine. Same with plastic laptops like the Thinkpad and Elitebook except they’d usually have a hole or crack in the corner after the drop instead of a dent.
You may not want to, but when you get food poisoning and have to run to the bathroom to throw up, you may knock the laptop over
This is a common security fallacy as sure you might not drop your laptop like you’re not crashing your car but once you hit something it’s nice to have airbags right? People pay several thousand dollars to recover hard drives of dropped laptops and can you imagine being in such stressful position? So a bit of safety goes a long way.
So no ports, a shitty battery and OS level spyware? Pass.
Wait, you keep the original OEM install? For what purpose?
Put Linux on it.
It made my Yoga last about 3 hours longer than Windows.
I’m guessing it’ll pair horrible battery life with awful build quality like most Windows laptops tend to do. They’re all focusing on being thin and light like a MacBook but none of them are close to what Apple has, because of that they loose everything that makes PCs special in the desperate attempt to achieve something Apple does better.
I believe the gram is know to have decent build quality. I’m sure it doesn’t compare to an M series Mac when it comes to performance and battery life, but at least I could put Linux on it.
*Looks at a 5y old G14 that gives a modern m4 Air a run for its money.
Yeah, Imma call BS on that. Apple has a handful of product lines that share vertically integrated components that allows them the economies of scale to integrate great things like their glass trackpad in cheaper models like the air. That said, there are several premium laptops at the same price tags than Apple that are arguably a better choice than the Apple offerings, the aforementioned G14 among them, especially if one takes linux compatibility seriously.
The CPU in the 2025 G14 seems to give the M4 Air a run for its money, I wouldn’t be so sure about a 5 year old one though unless you got a very high spec one. The G14 does have a much better GPU and display than the Air, but that’s sorta expected at close to twice the price.
After 5y the 5900HS is still a compelling alternative to the M4.
If one would run a 2t cinebench vs 1t on the Apple silicon the 5900 would have competitive single core performance too. (Apple lacks SMT)
This is two nodes behind and with 2 cores less. If people stopped using geekbench for laptops and PCs, this stupid Apple narrative would go away. Apple makes great laptops but they aren’t the best and are arguably worse because they lock you into Apple’s commercial relationships with software providers. There’s HW acceleration for Adobe software but none for D’Assault software or Siemens software. Apple is the machine for the dilletante, and because most content creators are dilletantes, the message that passes is Apple centric. If Apple and Apple users were to evaporate, the world would carry on as usual, if linux machines would disappear overnight it would be utter chaos.
After 5y the 5900HS is still a compelling alternative to the M4.
In multithreaded, yes, it gets close using 16 threads. Which of course is what matters if your application can make full use of all 16 threads, but that’s uncommon sadly. I’d argue that even the 10 threads of the M4 at full load are an unrealistic workload. Most applications are not embarrassingly parallel.
Single threaded, it loses to the M1 which was available in the Macbook Air, a significantly cheaper laptop than the G14.
If one would run a 2t cinebench vs 1t on the Apple silicon the 5900 would have competitive single core performance too. (Apple lacks SMT)
It would be a completely useless benchmark. The entire reason single threaded performance is tested is for applications that run most or all of their workload in a single thread. Which unfortunately is still pretty common even today, and for many applications isn’t really a problem that could feasibly be solved.
For applications that aren’t embarrassingly parallel, but also aren’t fully single threaded, the truth lies somewhere between the single threaded benchmark (in which the 5900HS isn’t very good) and the multi threaded (in which the 5900HS IS very good).
If you’re going to sing the 5900HS’s praises, maybe mention the fact that in multithreaded Cinebench, it (barely, but still) beats out the M1 Max, which was a MONSTER of a CPU for its time, it was such an improvment over the core i9 in the previous 16" MBP that it wasn’t even funny. Unlike the M4, it was also only available in a much more expensive laptop than the G14.
If you go current gen, the R9 270/8945HS in the G14 still loses to the M4 in single thread. And the M4 Air is 1000 euros cheaper than the G14 where I live. AMD wins in the multi core, but once you get to the M4 Pro you can have in a laptop that has a similar price (just a little bit more expensive) to the G14, Apple wins in multi core too. Also the M4 is getting on in age, you can now get the M5 in a Macbook Pro for a bit less than a G14. Sadly it’ll be a few more months till we can get it in the Air.
TL;DR: Comparing same generation, Apple’s cheapest CPU has a lower multi core Cinebench score than AMD’s highest, but higher single core. Go up in price and Apple has higher multi core too. Cross-gen comparisons are pointless. This all falls apart if you prioritize GPU over CPU, in which case you should stay far away from Apple.
FYI, Ryzen 9 270 is last gen, anyways:
Here’s a nice link to the passmark forum. You can clearly see a deranged Apple fanboy that has difficulty grasping anecdote is not the singular of data.
Back on topic:
The M4 air lets you run console and a bunch of daily tasks well enough, however, it really isn’t a work machine. It’s an iPad pro with a keyboard. Apple has troves of data on what the people who buy their HW do so they adapt fixed function for HW acceleration as needed. The single threaded benches are also wildly misleading as if you try to edit music on an Air you’ll be pulling your hair out due to latency on the “best single threaded portable CPU” due to thermal constraints (and yes, I know RTINGS recommends Apple for music production, sadly, they don’t really test latency propper, especially for music production). Run Izotope Ozone 10 with some oversampling and curse your life for going with Apple. Oh, and if you want to do anything remotely useful, get ready to shell out some extra money for RAM and storage that brings the price of the air up to par with the G14…
Apple laptops are Veblen goods, the battery life is great, when using popular software it works well (Adobe 🤮🤮🤢🤮🤮) but even Apple finds the M4 so underwhelming it had to compare it to the M1 instead of M3.
Given its age, the 5900HS has no place being as competitve with the M4 10core as it is, and yet, here we are.
The Ryzen 9 270 is what’s currently in the G14 much like the M4 is last gen but it’s what’s currently in the Air.
Apple compares the M4 to the M1 because the M1 is so good most M1 users don’t see a reason to upgrade yet unless they have the 8 GB model. I’m not even joking. People are still debating whether to upgrade from the M1 to the M5. Apple Silicon made their laptops so good there was no longer need to upgrade every 5 years like with Intel in the past.
I think you just have a chip on your shoulder. If you’re looking for a work machine, why are we talking about the cheap base model CPU? You should be comparing to the M1 Pro. Not the Max, since that’s more expensive, but the Pro is an apt comparison.
The Ryzen 9 270 is what’s currently in the G14
That’s for the cheaper GA403U models, the GA403W models have the 370.
Apple compared the M4 with the M1 because the M3 beats the M4 in several scenarios, especially in comparable SKUs where the M4 downgrades memory bandwidth. Now, of course, I could be a fanboy and preach that it’s because the M1 is so good.
I think you need this since you start resorting to ad hominem.
And then they all go to a landfill near you. When was LG a name on the laptop market?
Companies like this should not be allowed to churn crap like this
And then the all go to a landfill near you
I must assume you’re talking about LG and Apple laptops both.
To be fair, Apple hardware typically lasts for a long time. My wife has a 5 year old m1 air and we have no plans to replace it anytime soon.
We have been out the past few hours working and she went from like 50% to maybe 30-40% in that time.
I am talking about all the crap that is being built for no reason at all other than a gimmick . Like these LG laptops or the million of devices that are underpowered , poorly built or offer no real benefit. It makes more sense to buy a slightly more expensive device to make it last longer than getting a cheap unusable device. And if you can’t afford a new one always have a look at the second hand market. There are high quality slightly older devices that are infinitely better than 90%of the new ones built solely to be thrown in the bin in the shortest amount of time.
With another AI talk to try to hype up consumers in the article, I wouldn’t be surprised this thing is pretty much like a Chromebook that has to call servers to do much things… Still sticking to older tech
Kinda fascinating how they manage to cram RTX GPUs in there, don’t know how practical it is given the obvious constraints in battery life and cooling but eh. If the new models are anything like the current models they’ll even have decent I/O (minus the ethernet port grumble grumble)
If they offered an AMD version with a dedicated AMD GPU I’d even be half interested. But not really, my ThinkPad P14s is gonna serve me very well for the next 10 years or so.
Probably with unskippable advertisements.
Ofc with AI™
Almost as good as a macbook from 5 years ago, for only twice the price!
Not sure what you mean by that? Macbooks aren’t good laptops to begin with.
I’d take a “my first Sony”-notebook over those crapbooks for the technologically challenged 😁
Well if it’s anything like their previous models then it probably feels like it’s a toy. I remembered playing with a display model when I was thinking of buy it and was amazing by how flimsy it was.
On paper they seem like good laptops. But in practice?
I don’t think your personal anecdote is grounded in any meaningful reality. Laptop tech has been mostly solved for better part of a decade now and even cheap aliexpress laptops are built well enough to hold for years.
“built well enough to hold for years” is the bare minimum in laptop build quality. sure, lots of crappy flimsy laptops will last “years” but they are still crappy flimsy laptops.
also tons has changed in laptops over the last decade, particularly in efficiency.
Exactly. I have tons of cheap (when new) laptops that still work perfectly. But that’s because I baby them. If I treated them like how I treat my ThinkPads or MacBooks they’d have been broken in a year or two. Plus who actually wants to type on a laptop that’s flexing more than the keys are moving?
Do you actually want super light laptops? I feel like there is a sweet spot, but who knows maybe I would even want one, never held it in my hands/used it.
I feel like this comes at the cost of repairability as well though.
It does make a difference, especially when the gains are so massive. Personally I don’t care much for it but free weight loss is free weight loss. Hopefully this tech gets adopted by other laptop brands.
Just removed the battery.
The question is does it run as silent as apple laptops?
The question is can I run Linux on it.
Silence, at least under light load, is honestly such a nice feature.
I bought my desktop at an auction for a self-driving car startup that was shutting down. Amazing specs, great price. It had two RTX 2080 Ti cards in there. Loudest GPU fan I’ve ever heard in my life. All the other fans in the computer are Noctua but I guess the Ti cards are strictly optimized for performance and not necessarily gaming. I got some nice speakers that are color-coordinated with the desktop but when I’m doing some serious gaming I have to use noise-cancelling headphones to tune out the sound of the GPU fan. Might get a different GPU at some point but it’s out of my fun budget right now.
Do you have any use case for dual cards? Might trade them in for one newer, more efficient card.
Not at all, I sold one.
hated my 3060 ti because of the ridiculously loud fans. the lowest speed for the fans was 1600 rpm and at that speed it howled like a wolf. it would frequently turn them on even when idle as the temps went above 55.
very happy with my new sapphire 9070 xt, it stays perfectly silent no matter what i throw at it.
Personally I’m fine with them taking the noise levels from the aerospace industry, too. My primary concern is how’s the battery life?
well more noise usually goes hand in hand with worse battery life.
Most non-gaming laptops since 2010 don’t really make noticeable noise
no, even in 2020 Intel Macs were noisy compared to apple silicon Macs.
How can fanless intel macbook air make noise?
Only the MacBook 12 was fanless from the Intel era, but I’m not too sure about that. Airs were never fanless while being Intel.
and that thing was a disaster.
Unfortunately, yes. I’m looking for a compact laptop, a typing machine of a kind, I’d use for typing texts in nvim. So I don’t care how slow it is, but I’d like it to be thin and light, with USB C adapter for charger. Even the battery life is not something I need to be high, all I care for it to handle a single writing session, of an hour or two. Ideally, I’d prefer the laptop to be cheap, I don’t need a typing machine for a grand. This laptop could be perfect for the task, yet it’s a disaster. So far, one of the best laptops I could find is a used MacBook Air 11, can get one for €50 to €100 these days.
They had fans in the Pro, nobody mentioned the Air specifically in this thread. The Air at that time had a crappy Y series Intel CPU in order to go fanless.
