Best 17-inch Laptop Windows Central 2020
The LG gram 17 is a 17-inch laptop unlike nothing else we've ever seen. It combines a large display, high-end specs, and a portable form factor as yet never experienced on a 17-inch laptop.
Our pick
LG gram 17
Finally, a truly thin and light 17-inch laptop
The gram 17 is essentially a high-end Ultrabook, with a slim chassis, powerful specs, and skinny bezels. It's also absurdly light while still rocking a 17-inch display, and all of that combines for an experience you won't find anywhere else.
Who should buy this laptop
If you want a 17-inch laptop and gaming isn't on your mind, then the LG gram 17 is the one to get. It's a high-end Ultrabook but with a huge, high-resolution display. It's also designed to stand up to shocks, dust and water as well as extreme temperatures, so it's also incredibly durable.
Is it a good time to buy this laptop?
Definitely. The LG gram 17 has only just hit the market, so there won't be a replacement for some time and you're getting the latest 8th Generation Intel processor inside.
Reasons to buy
- 17-inch display
- Great battery life
- Incredibly light
- MIL-STD-810g durability
Reasons not to buy
- Not for gamers
- Slower SATA SSD
- Expensive
A 17-inch laptop you want to carry around
In our review of the LG gram 17, Executive Editor Daniel Rubino simply fell in love with this big laptop. The experience of using a 17-inch, high-resolution display is something special, but the gram makes this an experience you can truly take anywhere.
It has to be felt to be believed. The gram 17 is lighter than some laptops with much smaller displays, thanks to the nanocarbon and magnesium mix that makes up its chassis. You can toss this in any bag and take it on the road with you.
This is essentially a high-end Ultrabook with a 17-inch display.
Add in Thunderbolt 3, 16GB of RAM, a large SSD, and the 8th Gen Intel Core i7 and you have a laptop that oozes performance, despite its incredibly thin form. It also rocks a large battery. While LG claims it gets 19 hours of battery life, we only clocked it in at around 10–12 hours, which is still nothing to sneeze at. This is truly a laptop you can take on the go.
It isn't totally perfect, since the SATA SSD inside is much slower than the NVMe standard we'd expect to see in a laptop of this price, but unless you deal with huge files a lot you may not notice the difference in day-to-day use. There's also no dedicated GPU, so a portable gaming machine this is not.
It's a game changer for the 17-inch laptop space, usually dominated by bulky, heavy machines with below average battery life.
Alternatives to the LG gram 17
The LG gram 17 might be the best 17-inch laptop right now, but if you're looking for something a little different, in particular for gaming, then you might want to check these out.
Beast mode
Razer Blade Pro
Big, expensive, but an ultimate laptop
Razer's 17-inch Blade packs an insane amount of hardware in its body, including a 4K display and a GTX 1080 graphics card.
The entry model has a 120Hz 1080p display and a GTX 1060, but if you're willing to pay the price you can go up to a 4K touch display, a GTX 1080, and 1TB SSD with an overclocker quad-core Intel Core i7 processor and 32GB of RAM. The 4K display is great for content creation and consumption, while the entry level model will be the better pick for folks who want to game on the laptop rather than hook up to an external display thanks to its higher refresh rate.
Best for gamers
Alienware m17
Gaming performance and a large display
Six-core processors and RTX graphics from NVIDIA add up to a large, powerful gaming experience.
The m17 is the thinnest Alienware 17-inch laptop ever, and despite this, it's still packing an incredible amount of hardware. Up to an Intel Core i9 processor and RTX 2080 graphics card can be yours if you're prepared to pay. The entry level model is no slouch, though, with a six-core Intel Core i7 processor and an RTX 2060 graphics card.
Bottom line
The LG gram 17 rewrites the rulebook for 17-inch laptops. Recent years have seen the space dominated by large, heavy gaming machines, but LG proved things can be different. The gram 17 is an Ultrabook for people who want a large display, and that's a remarkable feat.
Our pick
LG gram 17
Finally, a truly thin and light 17-inch laptop
The gram 17 is essentially a high-end Ultrabook, with a slim chassis, powerful specs, and skinny bezels. It's also absurdly light while still rocking a 17-inch display, and all of that combines for an experience you won't find anywhere else.
Credits — The team that worked on this guide
Richard Devine is a Reviews Editor at Windows Central. You'll usually find him deep in hardware, gaming, both or drinking root beer for which he openly has a mild addiction.
Daniel Rubino is executive editor of Windows Central. He has been covering Microsoft since 2009 back when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, Surface, HoloLens, Xbox, and future computing visions. Follow him on Twitter: @daniel_rubino.
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