TECH REVIEW – One of our most common responses to a friend who says they want a 17-inch widescreen laptop is “no, I really don’t”. These devices are usually big, bulky and heavy.

 

However, the LG Gram 17 flips that idea on its head. It’s none of those things. And its large screen is categorically better in many ways for playing games, watching movies or browsing those giant, soul-draining spreadsheets.

The Gram 17 is lighter than most 15-inch laptops. Heck, it’s lighter than some 13-inches. And despite that, it still has plenty of power and excellent battery life.

That sounds like some kind of magic. The only significant problem here is that it has no real performance-oriented processor – the kind you want for serious video editing – and the screen is annoyingly reflective.

But like the original LG Gram 17, this 2020 version comes across as a genuinely portable widescreen laptop.

 

What’s new?

 

• Redesigned hinge
• New CPU
• Larger battery

 

LG has fixed one of the main complaints – that the laptop had a dated processor. The hinge has also been redesigned: it has lost a big barrel for a cleaner look. The battery life is also longer, capable of lasting a good few hours longer than the last model.

 

Design

 

• Dimensions: 80.6 x 262.6 x 17.4 mm / Weight: 1.35 kg
• Dark silver magnesium shell
• The LG Gram 17 is not a brand new range. It’s been around in the UK since 2019, but it’s probably unknown to many of you

 

It’s a thin, light and minimal looking laptop, a completely different proposition to any other 17-inch laptop you can buy today. For example, Dell’s Inspiron 17 comes with an optical drive and weighs over 3kg, reminding many of us of our first “work laptop” – the stuff of back pain nightmares.

You can’t blame the LG Gram 17 for any back pain. It weighs 1.3kg, which is the norm for a slim 13- or 14-inch model, not a 17-inch, and it’s almost 500g lighter than the 15-inch MacBook Pro.

How has LG managed this? Innovative design and magnesium. But mostly magnesium. Magnesium alloys are used in almost all ultra-light laptops because they are lighter than the aluminium alloys used in Apple’s MacBooks, for example.

Apple doesn’t stick with aluminium because it’s a technical conservative. The shell of the LG Gram 17 is not as lovely as the shell of a MacBook Pro. You don’t get the same incredible charm to the touch, nor the unbeatable density that makes you feel like you could use a MacBook to chop down a tree (don’t try that at home).

Some might find the LG Gram 17 unremarkable. And LG has warned us to expect a bit of flex, which is quite common in lightweight magnesium designs. Still, this laptop impresses. There’s just a bit of flex in the screen, and if you press hard on the centre of the keyboard, you can make it bend slightly. But given its specifications, the LG Gram 17 is still impressively rigid.

 

We have seen this in previous Gram laptops. They are tougher than they look at first sight. LG tries to prove this by abusing the poor with a bunch of military ruggedness tests. These involve high and low temperatures, simulated dust storms and a saltwater explosion, but the one that matters most is in shock. The LG Gram 17 fell from a height of 1.2m 26 times without dying. We suppose that means it may have been killed on the 27th attempt, but that’s not a bad scorecard.

 

Battery life

 

• 80Wh cell
• Cylindrical charger
• Up to 18.5 hours of battery life

 

The LG Gram 17 is an unlikely road warrior, but the battery life rather than the crash preparedness completes the picture. LG says the battery lasts up to 18.5 hours. But, as is so often the case these days, these figures are based on a scenario where the laptop does nothing half the time.

Our tests – playing a YouTube video at medium brightness until the screen checks – show that the Gram 17 lasts just under 13 hours. That’s well over the gold standard of eight hours for a full working day.

It will also give you the ability to do a little more than light browsing and document writing in less than eight hours.

Battery life has always been a strength of the Gram series. But there’s no real magic: LG uses much larger batteries than most competitors. This one has an 80 Wh cell, proving that low weight doesn’t necessarily mean a small battery and poor endurance.

 

Screen

 

• 17-inch IPS LCD, 2560 x 1600 resolution
• Glossy plastic finish
• Non-touch screen

There is one thing that prevents this from being a perfect widescreen travel laptop. The LG Gram 17’s screen is highly reflective, even more so than some glossy glass screen laptops.

Its surface is plastic, and there is no coating to remove the edge of the glare. Use the Gram 17 in front of a bright window, and you can see more than what’s on your screen.

Why plastic? Of course, it helps reduce weight and also contributes to robustness – because plastic won’t break like glass.

However, the real question is why LG uses a glossy finish instead of a matte one. What it looks like is the simplest and most likely explanation. There’s a polished charm to a glossy screen, and the LG Gram 17 is a lifestyle laptop, after all.

Other aspects of the laptop’s screen quality are excellent. It’s very bright, the colour depth is good, and the contrast is high for an LCD panel.

The screen resolution is also relatively good. Most 17″ laptops have a 1080p screen, but the resolution here is 2560 x 1600. The image looks sharper and cleaner, handy for applications that cram a lot of information into view. It doesn’t reach the 4K standard that Dell offers in its XPS range – even in the smaller screen models.

Despite the excellent colour and high contrast, the gram 17’s display form factor seems to be designed for applications rather than “content” like movies and games. It is a 16:10 screen, more significant than the usual 16:9. This helps make the canvas appear even more effective for your apps but leaves you with black bars when watching movies.

This is an observation, not a criticism. This type of display would be great for something like the Ableton music sequencer application, which can look uncomfortable when used on a small-screen laptop.

Like other Gram laptops, the LG Gram 17’s screen only folds down onto the classic post, not flat, and it’s not a touchscreen. There is no stylus either. It’s more of a laptop than a creative tool – the latter a concept Microsoft is keen to promote in its Surface lines if that’s what you’re after.

 

Connections

 

• Thunderbolt 3 USB-C 40 Gbit / s
• 3x USB-A 3.1
• 1x HDMI

 

Yet LG does feel that what a 17-inch laptop user will want and need. For example, there are more than just USB-C connectors on its sides.

You get three full-size USB ports, a full-size HDMI port and a microSD card slot. Most photographers would prefer a standard SD card slot, but we’re lucky to get any memory card reader these days.

USB-C is also Thunderbolt 3 compatible, which means it’s an ultra-high bandwidth connection, ready for things like higher refresh rate 4K monitors.

The LG Gram 17 also has a fingerprint scanner, one built into the power button. However, the webcam doesn’t support Windows Hello, so you can’t unlock the laptop with your face.

Its webcam is essential, with a 720p sensor, and its image looks like the oil painting of limited hardware trying to deal with image noise when you use it indoors.

 

Keyboard and trackpad

 

• Two-level keyboard backlighting
• NUM pad with a fingerprint scanner
• Textured glass touchpad with integrated buttons

 

We feel that the LG Gram 17’s webcam would be better if designed in today’s Zoom-obsessed world. However, the other basics are excellent and better than you’d expect.

For example, while the keyboard looks like a slim 14-inch laptop, with a number pad nailed to the side, its keypress is more profound than most. Their action feel is relatively smooth, not clicky, but each tap comes with solid feedback hit.

Tapping away causes a resonance in the shell, which you don’t feel in a laptop made from heavier materials, but it’s a fair trade for the Gram 17’s low weight.

The standard typing keys are slightly offset to the left to make room for the numeric keypad, but we didn’t find this particularly off-putting when typing. It doesn’t matter if your palm touches the pad because the LG Gram 17’s cursor pauses while you type.

LG also avoids the most common complaint of laptops with NUM pads by using this quietly clever tactic. The touchpad is always in neutral. It is not shifted to the left, as in almost all other laptops with this keyboard arrangement. The result? It feels good, without any of the clumsy arm-twisting you should have done.

The pad itself is also a class act in most other respects. It has a glass surface for ultra-smooth finger gliding. However, it bends more at the edges than other similarly priced laptops. Yet this is only obvious if you go looking for it. And that’s part of our job in this review.

 

Performance

 

• Intel Core i7-1065G7 processor
• 16 GB RAM
• 512 GB SSD

 

The LG Gram 17 doesn’t have the same kind of processor you’ll find in some big-screen laptops. Yes, it’s Intel. Yes, it’s a Core series chipset. But its Intel Core i7-1065G7 is a processor designed for low power consumption and low heat generation, not pro-grade performance.

Apple’s MacBook Pro 16, for example, has an H-series processor. And that’s why it’s an actual “Pro” laptop, ideal for video editors, graphics professionals, and anyone else who needs a workstation rather than just a laptop. However, a Core i7 MacBook Pro 16 costs much more and weighs much more.

If you don’t know yet if you need that kind of power, you probably don’t. The LG Gram 17 runs Windows 10 and everyday applications perfectly. Its 512GB SSD also offers breakneck read speeds (up to 3369MB/s, with writes of 1930MB/s).

The Core i7 processor has one of Intel’s Iris Plus GPUs, which is better than the previous Gram 17’s UHD 620 graphics chipset, allowing you to play Skyrim in 1080p and at medium graphics settings.

The newer and better looking Witcher 3 is barely playable (minimum standards required) at 1280 x 800 resolution with visuals set to their minimum. You’ll see frame rates of 20-26fps in the desert, 15-22fps in the cities.

That’s not bad for a laptop designed for light work, but the LG Gram 17 requires an Nvidia MX350. This is a low-end graphics card suitable for lightweight laptops like this. This would allow you to play more demanding titles. Intel suggests that the graphics chipset built into this Core i7 can replace an entry-level card, but in reality, it’s just not as good.

LG claims to have improved the Gram 17’s cooling system since the last version, increasing the size of the fan. This is important because the temperature determines how long a laptop like this can use its Turbo mode. However, it doesn’t take much to make the fan blow. Downloading something while browsing seems to do the trick, and we could hear it spinning almost all the time during testing – but it’s rarely noisy.

 

Final impressions

 

The LG Gram 17 is self-contained. It’s the only 17-inch laptop designed for those looking for a big-screen notebook rather than a vast, powerful workstation.

Some may say, who wants that? But the Gram 17 is ideal for anyone who uses a monitor most of the time and finds switching to a laptop screen a significant degradation. This laptop is lightweight, its battery is suitable for all-day use and more, while the keyboard and trackpad satisfy.

Any drawbacks? Well, the screen is a bit too reflective, and a low-end graphics card would improve those off-peak hours. But I can’t have everything at this price.

LG offers something different from the competition here without relying on gimmicks or technology that few will actually appreciate. As big laptops go, this one is loaded.

-Zardoz-

 

Manufacturer: LG

Product: Laptop

Launch date: 7 January 2021