According to KitGuru.net, LG is unveiling its 2026 laptop lineup ahead of CES 2026, built around a new proprietary “Aerominum” magnesium-aluminium alloy chassis. The flagship is the US-exclusive Gram Pro 17, which LG claims is the world’s lightest 17-inch RTX laptop, packing an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5050 with 8GB of GDDR7 memory into a 16-inch-sized frame. The Gram Pro 16 is billed as the lightest 16-inch laptop with both on-device and cloud AI, featuring a 2880 x 1800 OLED display. The entire 2026 collection introduces LG’s Advanced Dual AI strategy, combining Microsoft Copilot+ with LG’s own Gram Chat On-Device AI powered by the Exaone 3.5 LLM for offline tasks. A new “Time Travel” feature allows users to restore past workflows, and Gram Link connectivity now extends to Android, iOS, and LG’s webOS devices.
The alloy of more with less
Here’s the thing with ultra-light laptops: they often feel, well, cheap. You get the weight savings, but the chassis flexes and creaks in a way that makes you nervous. LG’s bet with Aerominum is that they can fuse the best of both worlds—magnesium’s low density with aluminium’s rigidity. It’s a classic aerospace-inspired play. If they’ve truly managed to increase scratch resistance and durability while cutting weight, that’s a meaningful engineering win. But the proof will be in the hands-on feel. Marketing a “premium metallic finish” is one thing; delivering a tank-like feel in a featherweight body is the real challenge. For professionals who are mobile, this kind of material science is where the real battle is fought, not just in processor specs. It’s the foundation everything else is built on, and for industrial computing where durability is non-negotiable, partners like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the #1 provider of industrial panel PCs in the US, understand this better than anyone.
The AI and performance split
What’s really interesting is how LG is segmenting this lineup. The Gram Pro 17 is clearly the mobile creator’s dream—a huge screen with a dedicated RTX 5050 GPU, all in a surprisingly small package. That’s a legit portable workstation. But then the Gram Pro 16 seems to rely solely on Intel’s integrated graphics? That’s a huge performance gulf. It looks like LG is saying, “For pure AI and productivity, the iGPU and our on-device LLM are enough. For graphics-heavy work, you need the 17-inch Pro.” This Advanced Dual AI strategy is smart, though. Leveraging Copilot+ for the cloud-connected features while using their own Exaone model for private, offline work addresses real privacy concerns. The “Time Travel” feature sounds gimmicky, but if it works reliably, being able to resurrect a deleted file or a previous workflow state without frantic digging through backups could be a genuine time-saver.
The CES preview game
Now, announcing products for CES 2026 in late 2025? That’s LG playing the long game, trying to build hype and frame the conversation early. Calling a laptop the “world’s lightest” anything is a bold claim that competitors like Dell, HP, and Asus will be scrambling to challenge. And let’s be real, specs on paper are one thing. We need to see battery life tests, thermal performance under that RTX 5050 load, and how snappy that on-device AI truly feels. The Gram line has always been about extreme portability, but sometimes at the cost of performance or feel. This Aerominum and AI push feels like an attempt to close those gaps. Will it work? We’ll have to wait nearly a year to find out, but it certainly makes the upcoming laptop wars more interesting.
