Most of the lightest laptops are compact little machines with 13-inch screens, but the LG Gram 17 (starts at $1,599.99, $1,799.99 as tested) breaks the mold by offering a spacious 17-inch screen, full keyboard and numeric pad, and performance that just won’t quit. The new model is still the lightest 17-inch laptop you can buy, but it steps things up over last year's model with a 12th Generation Intel Core i7 processor and battery life that stretches past the 20-hour mark. Throw in a few upgraded features, like a 1080p webcam, and it’s easy to name this our favorite big-screen ultraportable laptop.
A Featherweight Whopper by Design
The Gram 17 is defined by two key features. The first is weight, or lack thereof. Measuring 0.7 by 14.9 by 10.2 inches (HWD), it’s about the same size as the Dell XPS 17 (9720), but it’s a full 2.3 pounds lighter. In fact, it’s light enough to sneak under the 3-pound limit to be considered as an ultraportable laptop, an impressive achievement considering the fact that most laptops in this category have far smaller screens.
Much of that featherweight appeal is due to the magnesium alloy chassis, which manages to not only shave off the ounces, but also to stand up to some abuse, enough to meet MIL-STD-810 durability tests for shock, vibration, temperature, and more. It’s not so tough as to make it a rugged laptop, but the Gram 17 can handle life on the road, and the jet-black finish will keep it looking business-ready in all situations.
The other defining feature is the 17-inch display. With 2,560-by-1,600-pixel resolution, it’s a better-than-full-HD display with decent 350-nit brightness and great clarity thanks to IPS panel technology. A screen this big offers plenty of visual real estate for everything from web browsing and media streaming to photo editing and detailed work with documents and spreadsheets.
When testing the panel, we were pretty pleased with its performance. With 100% sRGB and 98% DCI-P3 color reproduction, it has some of the best color quality you can get, and the IPS panel looks even better thanks to a non-reflective coating that eliminates glare. The only thing it’s lacking is touch capability.
The speakers are a weak spot in the otherwise excellent Gram 17, with only a pair of 1.5-watt stereo speakers providing middling sound quality. Volume can get fairly loud, but with little to no bass and anemic sound in the mid- and high-range, you’ll be better served by headphones or external speakers.
Comfortable Interactions: Testing the Keyboard and Touchpad
Just above the display is a full HD webcam, complete with an IR sensor for Windows Hello facial recognition and secure logins. That’s a big step up from the 720p camera used on last year’s Gram 17, and above-average compared with the 720p cameras found on models like the Dell XPS 17. And thanks to Intel’s 12th Gen hardware, Zoom calls will sound better, too, with AI noise cancellation that filters out distracting background sounds.
The large footprint of the 17-inch Gram means that there’s plenty of room for a full-size keyboard and numeric pad. It’s the same keyboard used in the 2021 model, which offered comfortable typing thanks to decent vertical travel and sturdy switches for each key, along with nice, easy-to-read lettering. The keyboard also has a power button with an integrated fingerprint reader, so you can log in securely without the hassle of a PIN or a password.
The Gram 17 also has a generous 5.2-by-3.25 inch touchpad, with full gesture support and a smooth finish that’s comfortable for all of your swiping and scrolling.
The Connectivity: No Missing Ports Here
For a laptop this light, the Gram 17 doesn't skimp on the port selection. There are a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports, a full-size HDMI output, dual USB 3.0 ports, a microSD card slot, and a headset audio jack—all ports that many other laptops now rely on third-party docks and hubs to provide.
Even with one of the Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports taken up by the battery charging cable, you’ll have plenty of options for connecting everything from simple storage to desktop peripherals.
For networking and wireless connectivity, the Gram 17 is also outfitted with Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.1, giving you best-in-class wireless and compatibility for audio devices, printers, and more.
Testing the 2022 LG Gram 17: Heavyweight Performance From a Lightweight
The LG Gram 17 is part of the larger Gram model line, which ranges from a compact 14 inches up to the 17-inch model seen in our review. But within the 17-inch size category, there’s not a lot of variation. Our test unit comes equipped with an Intel Core i7-1260P processor, which has 12 total cores (four performance cores and eight efficiency cores), along with Intel Iris Xe Graphics. It also comes with 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM and a 1TB SSD for storage, and sells for $1,799.99.
Other configurations can be had with Core i3 or Core i5 CPUs, with LPDDR5 memory available in 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB allotments, and dual SSD slots for expanded storage. The base model sells for $1,599, with the top configuration adding up to $2,299.
Comparing the Gram 17's performance capabilities with other large laptops presents some interesting tradeoffs. It doesn’t have a discrete GPU like a gaming machine, and it’s a lot lighter than the average desktop replacement laptop. But it’s still similar in size and price to a number of 17-inch systems, like the Acer Aspire 5, the gaming-focused Acer Nitro 5, the affordable Dell Inspiron 17 3000, and the more premium Dell XPS 17 (9720). Where we could, we also compared performance with last year’s Gram 17 model, but we’ve updated many of our tests since then, so there weren’t as many performance comparisons we could make.
We start with productivity tests, which give us a good feel for how general processor performance will translate into day-to-day use. UL's PCMark 10 measures a system's relative performance for everyday tasks. This wide-ranging benchmark suite simulates a variety of Windows programs to give an overall performance score for office workflows. The tasks involved include such everyday staples as word processing, web browsing, videoconferencing, and spreadsheet analysis. Higher scores are better.
We also run PCMark 10's Full System Drive storage subtest, which measures the program load time and the throughput of the laptop's boot drive. Nowadays, that is almost always a solid-state drive rather than a spinning hard drive, yielding higher scores.
Maxon's Cinebench is a CPU test that uses the company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene. We use the test's multi-core benchmark, which exercises all of a processor's cores and threads—the more powerful the chip, the higher the score. Cinebench tends to scale well with more cores and threads, as well as with higher clock speeds. A higher score reflects better handling of processor-intensive workloads.
Primate Labs' Geekbench is another processor workout. It runs a series of multi-core CPU workloads designed to simulate real-world applications ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning.
Stacked up against everything from budget machines to powerful gaming rigs and desktop replacements, the LG Gram 17 lands squarely in the middle of the pack, posting better scores than you’ll see from Dell Inspiron 17 3000 or the Acer Aspire 5, but generally outflanked by the Acer Nitro 5 and the Dell XPS 17 (9720).
Next, we look at graphics capabilities. For testing, we use two different benchmarking tools, running a total of four tests. We start with UL’s 3DMark, first testing general-use graphics with Night Raid, and then pushing the graphics harder with Time Spy, which is better suited to powerful GPUs. We also run a pair of tests from GFXBench 5.0, testing OpenGL capability. They're run offscreen to allow for different display resolutions.
The LG Gram 17 is equipped with Intel Iris Xe graphics instead of the more powerful GPUs you’d find on gaming-oriented 17-inch machines, but it still has plenty of muscle for everyday users, especially compared with Core i5-powered systems that use the less capable Intel UHD Graphics solution.
Finally, we look at battery life. When portability relies as much on the longevity of a charged battery as it does a lightweight design, long battery life is a must-have. To test the Gram 17, we use our standard battery rundown test, playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100% until the system quits. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.
With just over 20 hours of battery life, the Gram 17 offers excellent all-day endurance, with more than enough battery to get you through a day of work without bringing a charger along. It’s an improvement over the 2021 Gram 17, likely due to the improved efficiency of Intel’s 12th Gen processor, but it’s also more than double what you’ll get from competitors like the Acer Nitro 5 or the Dell Inspiron 17 3000, which don’t even reach 8 hours.
Verdict: Light, But No Lightweight
The biggest selling points of the LG Gram 17 are obvious: the featherweight design paired with the 17-inch display. They make it the rare 17-inch laptop that still qualifies as an ultraportable. That was enough to earn last year’s model top marks, yet the 2022 LG Gram 17 has returned with even more to offer.
New Intel hardware means better performance and even longer battery life, while new features like a 1080p webcam and Windows Hello facial recognition make it even easier to secure your work. And the best aspects of the Gram 17 are unchanged, from the carbon-magnesium alloy construction to the superb 17-inch display.
It’s a laptop that delivers on all fronts, with solid performance and great usability, all wrapped up in a sturdy yet super-portable design. It’s a little more expensive this time around, but it’s still our top choice for big-screen general-purpose laptops.