LG X-Note LM50 Notebook Review

LG Electronics is new to the North American notebook market, but not new to making exciting and stylish products. Within North America the LG X-Note LM50 notebook is only available in Canada at the moment, LG has a non-compete with IBM in the U.S. until 2005, but for those in Canada that want a thin-and-light notebook (2.4 Kg/4.8lbs and under 1" thick) with amazing battery life, extended wi-fi via a 4-antenna system,good style and unique cooling features the LG LM50 might be for you.

LG X-Note LM50 Overview from LG Electronics

For long distance travellers concerned about battery life, the X-note's standard batterycan provide up to 6.5 hours of service, with an extended life version that gives up to 10 hours, depending on the program and content being run. So business people that need to work on the go and still have a notebook that has a large enough screen to view should definitely give the LG X-Note LM50 a look.

Designed to make a style statement, the premium model (LM50) features a sleek, titanium and carbon fibre case for light weight and rigidity. At just under 1" high, and only 2.4 kgs (4.8 lbs), it's one of the slimmest and lightest on the market.

According to Ross Snow, Director of Sales and Marketing for the IT Products, the LM50 notebookmodel "will appeal to the business traveller who spends more time in the air than on the ground". He continues, "We realized that putting just another notebook on the market wasn't going to make much of a wave, so we packed it with features and industry leading performance to satisfy the most demanding user".

Heat is typically a problem in notebooks, so LG designed its unique Heat Tubes system, which employs two gel-filled tubes which collect and channel heat to the cooling fan. The result is cooler operation and more comfortable use.

For maximum viewing versatility, the 15" TFT screen offers a 120 degree viewing angle for presentations to multiple viewers with no loss of image quality.

To meet the rapid growth of Wi-Fi wireless access via Hot Spots, the X-note line also features a 4-antenna system that picks up even the weakest signal, and does it from any direction. Current laptops usually employ a single antenna that has to be positioned toward the hot spot transmitter in order to pick up the signal, which can be awkward.

Key Features:

• Up to 10 hour battery life with optional extended life battery


• Titanium and carbon fibre chassis for rigidity and light weight


• "Heat tubes" running through the chassis, that collect and dissipate heat for maximum cooling and comfort


• Intel Centrino processor for longer battery life and easier wireless connection


• One-touch IP address settings - stores multiple IP settings for convenience

Link to Full Specs: http://spirit.lg.ca/xnote/brochures/lm50.pdf

On to the Review...

First things first, if you are looking at buying an LG notebook in Canada, buy it from Online Electronics Inc. They are based in Ontario, but from what I understand they do or will soon sell to the United States. (As a side note, LG will be coming to the US in the next 3-4 months aftertheir non-compete with IBM ends).

The guys at Online Electronics Inc. (

http://onlineelectronicsinc.com/) were absolutly great while I was looking into this. They did everything from installing Linux on a notebook to test for me (couldn't find any info if it worked or not), promising no-dead pixels, to passing on several price drops from LG to me and saving me a couple of hundred bucks - after I was already buying the notebook. They went the extra mile, and were great to deal with. I think this is important when spending the kind of cash notebooks cost these days. Ask for Jeff! They are putting up pricelist stuff soonish, right now their site doesn't have info on the LG's, but you can contact them for pricing.

Anyway, on to the notebook. It arrived and as promised, no dead pixels. Beautiful screen...at least as bright as the Sony XBrite, but without the shiny reflective screen. It's a 200 nitt screen, for those keeping track. Very crisp - probably due to the SXGA+ (1040x1500... sooo nice), and very vibrant colors, they just jump right out. I actually turned the screen brightness down while using the notebook in low-light conditions because it was so bright. The screen has 8 brightness settings.

My only initial concern here was that 1040x1500 would be too high a resolution for a 15", but those concerns were dissolved when I saw it - it's perfect. No eye strain at all, just seems right. Viewing angle is good also, haven't had any problems with this at all.

Keyboard - this is an importantfeature forme, since I'm a programmer and I type a lot - and the keyboard is also great. The keys have a nice feel,they are sturdy, full sized keys and well spaced. Page up/Page down buttons are their own buttons, not needing a Function button push, and surprisingly it took no getting used to at all - I find I am able to just type without any more thought than on my desktop, with the small exception of the left Ctrl. button (function button is far bottom left, ctrl is to the right - but i think this is fairly standard). I stumbled a couple times on that, but it became normal very quickly.

Buttons - The only buttons on the notebook other than the keyboard buttons is a power button and a dedicated volume up/down (pushing both at the same time is mute).

Look - This leads into the look of the laptop, which follows the same concept as the buttons- clean, no clutter or glitz anywhere. It won the IF Design Award, and it's easy to see why. It's a nice silver with a black keyboard. There is a slight piano black accent around the top lid which makes it look fairly slick when closed, but other than that it's very simple. It's perfect. Very nice looking unit, had a few people at work walking around saying "damn, i want to sell my notebook and get one of those", and they were were only half-joking.

Hardware - The hardware itself is all high quality components, I'd list it all off but as I write this the LM50 is in in the middle of installing Gentoo (Gentoo is a version of Linux,http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/about.xml)! From poking through thePC info in windows though, every peice of internal hardware is high quality. No low grade stuff in here that i could find. For ports it has 3 USB 2.0 ports - 2 on the left front, and one on the right rear (the single one for the mouse). There is a hidden drawer which opens to reveal a plug for an external monitor and a parallel port, S-video on the back, and on the right/front there is a firewire port, SD Memory card slot, and a pcmia slot. All the plugs seem very well positioned. Power, modem and ethernet are located on the back as well. The wireless b/g is a mini pci card - It's built into the notebook, so it's not something you can access easily, but i would assume that with a screwdriver you could pop it out and upgrade once the next wireless band comes along.

Lights - Above the keyboard is where all the indicator lights are, but you can't really see them unless they are enabled. I'm not going to bother listing these off, as I assume the functionality of these lights doesn't change much, but they are green and not obtrusive. The speakers are front and center and create an interestingly designed vent shape on the front of the notebook.

Touchpad - Touchpad is simple, a synaptics touchpad with 2 buttons - no scrollwheel, but of course you don't need it, you can scroll with your finger on the pad. Anyone who's used a synaptics touchpad will be familiar with the software, it let's you setup all kinds of crazy stuff.

Sound - Sound is nothing to write home about, but it's pretty good for a laptop. You can get some pretty decent volume out of it, but as expected the bass isn't that great - and with grungy music it can distort at higher volumes. (playing with the graphic equilizer in my media player was able to mostly resolve that, though)


Case - The case is made of amagnesium/carbon fiber alloy, so it's fairly light for a 15" screen notebook- 2.2kg (4.8 lbs) with the 6 cell / 6 hour battery in. I got the 9 cell / 10 hour battery so it's a bit heavier, but it still seems light. It's definitly a "thin and light". As for thin, it's about an inch tall closed... Just slightly thicker than my friends powerbook, mostly because of the feet (which are not removable, they are part of the case).

Cooling System - The cooling system in this notebook is primarily heat piping. There are 3 ACPI fans, but they are very quiet. Apperantly they are able to keep the fan speed and usage (and noise) down because of the heat piping. The notebook only ever gets warm during 100% CPU usage and when that happens itseems like some of the heat is actually released through the keyboard like a mac powerbook. Overall thoughthis notebook is very cool running andheat just isn't an issue with thepiping systemLG has put in place.


Battery Life - Battery life as I mentioned depends on the battery, you can get a 6 or 9 cell (9 cellprotrudes out a bit from the notebook, but it doesn't get in the way or look bad, so it's worth it) - LG claims 6 hours on the 6 cell and 10- hours on the 9 cell... Bold claims, to be sure. After a full charge, i unplugged it and let it sit for a bit, Windows informed me I had 12 hours batter life left - unplugging it drops the screen brightness to about half, after cranking it up to full brightness and leaving it for awhile the battery life ETA dropped to about 6 hours. I'm able to get about 5-8 hours out of the battery when using Llinux with a 9 cell battery, the variation in hours depends on what I'm using the notebook for of course.

Performance -I haven't done any benchmarks or anything - but the LM50 is very fast andvery responsive in terms of "perceived" performance (and by this I mean how fast it feels compared to other computers I've used). It's a 1.7ghz (745 Dothan) centrino, and i got the 80gb drive - specs are here:
http://spirit.lg.ca/xnote/model.asp?selected=lm50

Software -The LM50 came with a bunch of software and of course the quick restore cd, all of which remains in the box (it's windows software, I'm not running windows). There are no partitions on the drive for any weird system tools or whatnot.

Mouse - The LM50came with a miniature usb/optical mouse

AC Adaptor - The charger/ac adaptor is nice and small/light, just a little black box and a cable.

Warranty - The LM50 comes with a 3 year warranty. I was not offered any "extended" warranty - the base warranty from LG just covers it all, so there is no need for such things. I didn't even have to send the warranty card back to LG to register for the warranty like I had to with my old fujitsu, I just have a peice of paper that you are susposed to write your serial # on and keep - you just send it, with the notebook, if something breaks. Amazing service and warranty provision there!


So, the bad? - Well, i can't really say i've found much bad yet - the only thing i can think of that they could really do would be to up the HD speed. I think it's 4200. I honestly haven't noticed any speed issues, at all, but that's something they could speed up anyway.

Also, I've found that the wifi detection won't work in linux yet, although I'm still working on it.. for windows users there won't be any problems. Basically what it is is three hidden blue leds on the outside/top cover which come on when there is a wireless signal picked up - makes it easy to tell when you are near a hotspot (or somebody who has an open wifi connection)

 

So which is it? Titainium or Magnesium (with Carbon fiber)? Kind of confusing when in one place you say Ti and close to the end you state Magnesium!
Inquiring minds want to know...
RBG[?]

 

Very interesting review; thanks.

I have been looking at the Fujitsu E8000, and the LG LM50 looks like a potential alternative.

FYI, the pdf mentions titianium and carbon fiber.

Also, note that 2.4kg maps to 5.3 lbs. But that is still quite a bit less than the E8000 which is 7.0 lbs with the 8-cell, 4.8 hour battery. I checked out the E8000 today and it felt a bit heavy. But the screen was real nice. Maybe the LG LM50 has a better keyboard...

 

amazing specifications! anyone know if it has a dvi out? (or a port replicator that provides dvi out)

 

my bad, it's titanium - not magnesium (see the pdf). I got magnesium from reading something on their site, but I think that was from a different model.

no DVI out, just S-video and VGA.. and I'm not sure if there is a port replicator available or not.



--
LG LM50 / Dothan 745
jerrett.net

 

Great overview! But what about the performance, like system bench mark or what's the video sub system like? Integrated or dedicated RAM?

Thanks in advance for the info!

 

The video card is a 64mb Dedicated ATI Radeon 9600, so it's pretty good video-wise.

As for performance/benchmarks, I'm running Linux and don't know of any benchmarking programs. It's fast though, it took 45 minutes to compile Xorg - my desktop (athlon 2000+) took over an hour and a half to do the same thing



For those seeking more specific information on Linux on this notebook, I put up a page here: http://lm50.jerrett.net/

--
LG LM50 / Dothan 745
jerrett.net

 

LG X-note LM50 is one of the notebook i ever had now! When I bring in the School they were amazed because of its unique style and users friendly! This LG LM50 is not available here in the Philippines. So i am proud to have this![ ]

 

Hi [ ]
Please explain more about its LCD !
*(Very crisp - probably due to the SXGA+ (1040x1500... sooo nice), and very vibrant colors, they just jump right out. )*
What exactly do u mean?
Is it worse than a VAIO?

Thanks

 

It's not an enhanced display like Sony uses in most models if that's what you're asking.

Editor in Chief http://www.bargainPDA.com and http://www.SPOTstop.com

 

Thanks dear Brian for your remarkable quick response [ ]
I wanna buy a new notebook & the only point which make me eager to buy a VAIO is the quality of its LCD.
I wanna know if LG's LCD isn't like a VAIO , is it as good as a DELL ,HP or TOSHIBA LCD?
Is a VAIO XGA LCD better than a LG SXGA LCD?
I've compared two models here & as you see LG is better in any case except its LCD (however LG has a SXGA 1400x1050 but VAIO has a XGA 1024x728 LCD) and also LG doesn't have a DVD burner.
Please gimme your opinion.

SONY-VAIO VGN-A130P27
CenD1500
256MB RAM
HDD 60GB
VGA 64MB
15"XGA
DVD Burner
3.4 KG

LG LM50-CVKE3
CenD 1800
512MB RAM
HDD 60GB
VGA 64MB
15"SXGA
COMBO (no DVD Burner)
2.4 KG

 

Let's compare:

CPU: 1800 vs 1500 - of course LG
RAM: 512 vs 256 - of course LG
CD/DVD DVD-ROM/CD-RW vs DVDRW (btw, is it +/- or dual?) Sony
LCD: SXGA vs XGA - I choose LG. .
I like to have lo work space. I even would prefer UXGA. I dont know how are the Vayo lcds but my LG is doing very well, I dont have any compaint
And the last and not least criteria: weight. Of course LG. it is 1kg ligher then sony. The LM50 is only 2.4 cm thik. It is very slim

Also if it is lighter I think it should have a better battery life. I can work up to 5 hours on my LM50a.

I also read alot of reviews before buying my laptop (I bought it in november 2004) and I dont regret to chose LG.

btw, now LG have a new model LM70. It is on the new 915 chipset with 533Mhz FSB. It is 100g lighter and have a dvd burner (DVD-RW/DVD+RW/DVD-RAM). Also it have a sata hdd and a ati X600 video wiht 64/128Mb. I dont know about the price, but I dont think it should be much expensier then LM50. Alos if you want dvd burner but LM70 is too expensier you can try LS50. the diference si that it is 200-300gr. heavier and not so slim. and the battery life could be not so great as for LM50.


Anyway, go with the LG.

 

Thx mvictor80 [ ]
What's your idea about LG widescreen models ? LG-LW60 & LG-LW70
Do u prefer wide or standard screen?
Now I have focused on LG-LS70[ ]

 

This is my first laptop and I never worked on a wide screen laptops. So I cannot give you a well answer. But my intuition is telling me that a sandard 4:3 display will be better because the most applications are optimized for them. I see the advantage of 16:9 screens only watching DVDs and if you want to put 2 windows side by side, but then you realy need alot of working space, like a WUXGA 1920x1200. So I would prefer a 4:3 display.

Indead, I recomand you the LS70 or LM70 series because they got a new precessor and a better video card.

Initialy I wanted an IBM T42p, T41p or at least R50p, but they are so expensive. I found LG as a very similar in caracterstics with a very resonable price. By the way, I sow on Korean sites that they call this LG-IBM X-Note. Does that means it is made by LG and IBM?

Btw, this laptop is possible to buy only in canada, asia and former soviet countries. I'm from Moldova and I bought it there and now I'm in France (I doo my PhD here) so I'm basicaly the only one with such a laptop in France and I get alot of complement from friends about my laptop about how slim and how silent it is.

 

I know this is a review for the LM50 but i was wondering your thought on the LS50. the LM is a tad out of my price range seeing as i am a college student at the moment. Any info would be gate. the net is lacking a good review for it like this one


Oh. and the store that is metioned in this thread is just down the street from me.

 

since we don't get LG over here, is the screen one of those glossy/glare types or something more traditional? I'm not too good with those abbreviations

 

Hi

Anyone knows if the this notebook has the same problems as lm70 that according to another review looses performance due to heat problems?

Thanks