LG Gram 16Z90 (2025): Ultra-lightweight, powerful, and AI-enabled without sacrificing essentials

When thinking of the ideal laptop for working on the go, there's usually a catch: if you want something light, you have to sacrifice screen size or battery life. But the new LG Gram 16Z90 (2025) breaks that rule. This laptop achieves what many thought impossible—delivering a large 16-inch display, ultra-lightweight design at just over 1 kg, competitive performance, and now, built-in on-device artificial intelligence.

The Gram series has always stood for extremely lightweight devices without compromising user experience. In this 2025 edition, LG strengthens its core values and introduces major internal upgrades, along with its very own AI assistant that works offline.

Design & Portability: True lightweight innovation without cutbacks

One of the first things you'll notice about the LG Gram 16Z90 is its clean, professional, no-nonsense design. Its chassis is built from a magnesium and carbon alloy, which makes it sturdy yet incredibly light: just 1.239 kg. For a 16-inch laptop, this is a major engineering feat.

This material not only reduces weight, but it also resists fingerprints and dirt quite well, maintaining a neat and refined look. The matte black finish keeps things elegant and low-key—ideal for professional settings or users who dislike flashy designs.

Despite its slim profile, this machine meets MIL-STD-810G military standards, meaning it’s built to withstand shock, pressure, humidity, and even corrosion. And while its thinness (just 1.5 cm) might give off a fragile vibe, it's far more durable than it looks.

Ports and connectivity: Almost perfect

Port selection is quite comprehensive. On the right side, you'll find two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports and a Kensington lock slot. On the left side, there are two USB-C 4.0 Gen 3 ports (both support charging), a HDMI 2.1 output, and a 3.5 mm audio jack.

One small drawback: both USB-C charging ports are on the same side. Ideally, having one on each side would allow for more flexible cable management.

On the wireless front, this model is equipped with the latest Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.3, ensuring fast, stable connections. For biometrics, the power button doubles as a fingerprint scanner, which is fast, intuitive, and works reliably.

Big, useful, and balanced display

A key highlight of this laptop is its screen. Having a 16-inch panel in such a lightweight chassis is rare, and LG has done it without compromising quality.

The display is an IPS panel with WQXGA resolution (2,560 x 1,600), 350 nits brightness, and a 16:10 aspect ratio, which is perfect for productivity and vertical content. While it doesn’t feature touch input or high refresh rates, and doesn’t match the pixel density of a 4K OLED, it strikes an excellent balance.

Color reproduction is accurate, with 99% DCI-P3 coverage, and thanks to the anti-glare treatment, visibility in bright environments is excellent. It’s not overly reflective and still manages to preserve vibrant colors.

Multimedia lovers will enjoy the Dolby Atmos stereo speakers located underneath, delivering good volume even if the sound is a bit flat. Still, for video calls, music, or casual video watching, they get the job done.

Speaking of video calls, the 1080p webcam offers solid quality and includes IR sensors for Windows Hello facial recognition.

Performance: Core Ultra, 32 GB RAM, and built-in NPU

This laptop is powered by the latest Intel Core Ultra 7 258V, part of Intel’s new Lunar Lake family. It includes a 47 TOPS NPU to accelerate AI tasks locally.

Our test model came with 32 GB LPDDR5X RAM and a 1 TB NVMe Gen 4 SSD, delivering excellent performance. Whether you're editing photos, managing dozens of browser tabs, attending video meetings, or streaming content, everything runs smoothly.

Graphics are handled by the Intel Arc 140V GPU, which is more capable than previous integrated graphics. It’s not made for gaming or heavy 3D work, but it's perfectly fine for creative tasks, casual games, or video playback.

There’s also an extra M.2 slot in case you want to expand storage down the line.

Cooling and noise: Everything under control

One of the LG Gram 16Z90's strong suits is its efficient cooling system. Even under stress tests, the chassis remains cool to the touch. You can use it on your lap for hours without discomfort.

And it’s incredibly quiet. During everyday use, you’ll barely hear it. The fans only activate during heavy workloads, and even then, they’re unobtrusive. LG clearly prioritized thermal management and power efficiency over raw benchmark scores—and it pays off in real-world comfort.

LG My Gram: Your control center

To manage performance profiles, power settings, display modes, and cooling, LG includes its custom control software: LG My Gram. It’s an intuitive, user-friendly app that centralizes settings like sound, battery, updates, and even noise cancellation.

This is also where you’ll find LG’s new offline AI assistant, called Gram Chat On-Device. It works without an Internet connection and understands natural language commands to help you find files, adjust settings, or get general guidance.

While some advanced commands work best in English or Korean, we found that it performed well with Spanish too. That said, for now it often guides you to the right menu rather than performing the action automatically—for example, turning on keyboard backlight.

Battery life: A workday without a charger

The 77 Wh 4-cell battery is quite large for a device this thin and light. LG claims over 23 hours of usage under ideal conditions (low brightness, no Wi-Fi, video playback). In real-world use—at 40% brightness with Wi-Fi on—we averaged between 7 to 8 hours, which is still very respectable.

For most users, that’s a full workday without needing a charge. And if you optimize power settings further, you could stretch it even more.

Charging is done via USB-C with the included 65W charger, which is compact and lightweight—perfectly aligned with the device’s ultra-light concept. A full charge takes about two hours. Again, having charging ports on both sides would’ve been more convenient, but it’s a minor issue.

Keyboard and touchpad: Excellent user experience

Typing on the LG Gram is a pleasure. The keyboard stretches across the full width of the chassis and includes a numeric keypad—a welcome feature for those working with spreadsheets.

Although keys like Enter or the arrow keys are slightly smaller than standard, the overall typing experience is fantastic: responsive, stable, and comfortable, with a generous amount of key travel.

The keyboard is backlit with two brightness levels, and ambient sensors control automatic activation. There are also handy shortcut keys for Microsoft Copilot, airplane mode, and touchpad toggle.

The touchpad is equally excellent: large, silky smooth, accurate, and with full gesture support. One of the best in its class.

Conclusion: The perfect balance of portability, performance, and features

The LG Gram 16Z90 (2025) is a top choice for users seeking a large screen, ultralight design, long battery life, and strong performance in a sleek and professional package—now with the bonus of integrated offline AI.

It’s not a gaming machine or a workstation for heavy 4K video editing. But for professionals, students, digital nomads, or anyone who needs to carry a big screen without a big burden, this is one of the best laptops you can get in 2025.