LG Gram Laptops: 17" 2560x1600 IPS, i5-1240P, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD Expired

This will be in most respects slightly better than the Costco model. The BuyDig A model has DDR5, a slightly different chassis, a newer (faster, though for most people, this won't matter) SSD, a 1080p webcam with face recognition, and no fingerprint reader. The Costco B model has DDR4, the chassis from the 2021 models, a slightly older SSD, and uses a fingerprint reader rather than face recognition. The keyboard legends on the B model are also stylized in the same way as the 2021 models, while the A model has more subdued-looking keys. (Personally, I would prefer the fingerprint reader to face id, which requires decent lighting and to be sitting at a certain minimum distance from your screen, but appreciate the higher resolution of the webcam, which is worlds better than the webcam of any laptop I've owned in the past.)

The main 'issue' I've had with the machine, owning it since December, is the driver and firmware situation. The latest Intel drivers absolutely ruin the gamma on this machine and render it unusable. I have rolled back the drivers and disabled LG's software update tool for the time being, but it should never have been released in this state and has still not been fixed months later. That doesn't inspire long-term confidence in their software support. The Reddit thread on this can be found here:

https://old.reddit.com/r/LGgram/c..._intel_xe/

The firmware on these machines is otherwise either super limited or, in advanced mode, exposes so many controls that it is unclear what they do.

All that said, the battery and fan noise is much better than my old 8550U based system, and I am generally pretty happy with it. I actually like the amount of feedback I get from the keyboard, too. A lot of people like to crap on the screen for being 'only' 1920x1200 and not class-leading in terms of brightness, but I think this is the ideal resolution for a laptop of this size, and the 350-400 nits we get is plenty bright for most situations I actually use the laptop in (inside without too much sunlight). That it is matte rather than glossy is also appreciated.

The only other issue is that traditional standby has been eliminated by Intel in 12th gen and higher CPUs, and we have to live with modern standby, which will wake the machine enough to do background tasks (and thus kick the fan on and potentially use battery) if the machine is plugged in when standby is engaged. To my knowledge neither Microsoft nor OEMs have fixed this as yet, but it is a pain. That's not specific to this machine, but it is a problem with Windows laptops generally right now. Likewise, I am finding that Windows 11 is a memory hog, and wish I had a 32GB machine. None of these are affordable, however, not in a thin-and-light form factor.