LG Gram 17 (2023) Review
A brilliantly lightweight big-screen laptop
Verdict
The LG Gram 17 (2023) is a fantastic laptop for those who want a 17-inch screen on an ultra-portable frame, boasting an excellent performance and battery life too. However, it’s difficult to ignore rivals from Apple and Acer at more affordable prices.
Pros
- Big and bright 17-inch screen
- Ultra-portable design
- Great port selection
- Solid performance and battery
Cons
- More expensive than key rivals
- Bland design with notable flex
Key Features
- Super-sized screenThe 17-inch screen is one of the biggest you’ll find on a laptop, with high brightness and ace colour coverage.
- Ultra-portable designThis is one of the lightest 17-inch laptops you’ll be able to find in stores.
- Windows Hello supportThe Full HD webcam supports facial recognitions for speedy logins.
Introduction
The LG Gram laptop series has been around for almost a decade now, and has been relying on one special party trick ever since: its physics-bending lightweight design.
Many would have guessed that leaning heavily on one gimmick for such a long time would age as badly as a Ricky Gervais comedy routine. And yet the lightweight build of the Gram has stood the test of time, proving incredibly useful for those who fancy a big screen without getting back strain from carrying the PC to the office and back.
The LG Gram 17 (2023) showcases that perfect blend of size and portability better than any other laptop I’ve ever tested. But LG is no longer the only laptop maker making portable big-screen PCs, with the MacBook Air 15-inch and Acer Swift Edge 16 also excelling at scratching that particular itch.
So is the LG Gram 17 (2023) still a worthwhile laptop buy with increasing competition? After spending a few weeks with the PC, here are my thoughts.
Design
- Incredibly light for laptop this size
- Keyboard is a fingerprint magnet
- Good selection of ports
The LG Gram 17 (2023) is a rather basic-looking laptop, with the extra flair and pizazz reserved for the new LG Gram Style and LG Gram SuperSlim ranges instead.
LG hasn’t made many design tweaks compared to the 2022 edition, but it hasn’t really needed too. Sure, it looks bland, but the delightfully lightweight build is far more useful than good looks. It weighs just 1.35kg, making it even lighter than the 15-inch MacBook Air despite having a noticeably larger screen.
Taking the LG Gram to and from the office was no problem at all, as I could easily tuck it under my arm or balance on one hand without worrying it was going to topple over or snap my fingers. It’s really slender at 17.8mm too, ensuring it was easy to slip inside my average-sized rucksack without issue.
LG has been able to achieve this wondrously lightweight design by using a magnesium-alloy construction rather than the typical aluminium. This material has noticeably more flex when I push hard against the deck, although LG insists this laptop is still very much durable having undergone a military durability assessment.
LG offers up both a Dark Grey and Obsidian Black colour scheme, with the latter option sent to me for review. I quite liked the colour, although I did find it to be a finger-print magnet on both the keys and deck to make it appear a little grubby after heavy use.
Many slim laptops will opt to reduce the selection of ports on the sides, but that’s not the case here. The LG Gram 17 (2023) is adorned with HDMI, 2x Thunderbolt 4 and a headphone jack on the left edge, as well as 2x USB-A and MicroSD on the right.
I can’t fault the keyboard, as there’s plenty of spacing between keys, and even room for a number pad. There’s enough key travel for a satisfying typing experience too. There’s sadly no fingerprint sensor to be found, but the webcam at least has an IR sensor for facial recognition support via Windows Hello. The webcam also supports a Full HD capture: video looks muted, but it’s plenty detailed enough for work meetings and the like.
I can’t find any claims from LG that it has used sustainable materials for the laptop, but it’s done a great job with the packaging which is made almost entirely of cardboard – there’s just one sheet of plastic that protects the laptop.
Screen
- Huge 17-inch screen is great for movies
- Shame that there’s no OLED option
- High brightness and great colour coverage
The LG Gram 17 (2023) has a massive 17-inch screen, which makes a big difference to the standard 13-inch laptops. From squeezing in more web browser bookmarks, to making movies look more cinematic, having a 17-inch screen is incredibly useful.
LG has opted for a 16:10 aspect ratio, which means it’s able to cram in more rows of text on a webpage than the older 16:9 ratio. That does have the minor downside of big black bars bordering the top and bottom of a film though.
The high 2560×1600 resolution of my review unit (although 3200×200 is also available) ensures that supported video and images look super sharp, while the anti-glare technology prevents sunlight from causing irritating reflections. It’s a shame that LG hasn’t used an OLED panel, which is becoming increasingly popular in the laptop space, as this has held back the contrast and vibrancy of the LG Gram screen.
That said, I’ve conducted a few benchmark tests on the screen to see how the LG Gram 17 stacks up to the competition, and the results were impressive. It saw an outstanding 416-nit peak brightness, while contrast came in at a superb 1510:1. That’s not too far away from the 15-inch MacBook Air.
Colour coverage is fantastic, with 100% of sRGB, 91% of Adobe RGB and 99% of DCI-P3. This all means the screen is capable of producing a great enough range of colours that it should result in highly accurate on-screen images and videos. If you want a big-screen laptop for casual creation, this could be a good choice.
Performance
- Good performance for productivity
- Rivals offer faster GPU speeds
- 1TB of storage is plentiful
The LG Gram 17 (2023) is powered by the Intel Core i7-1360P chip from the preceding generation. However, it’s still a powerful productivity laptop that saw even better scores than most of the Windows laptop of its ilk from 2023.
I conducted a series of performance benchmarks on the Gram, and found its processing speeds to be faster than both the Acer Swift Edge 16 and 15-inch MacBook Air.
I didn’t encounter any slowdown or significant issues when using the LG Gram 17 as my work machine. It can happily juggle multiple browser tabs and apps simultaneously, although my review sample is kitted out with 32GB of RAM, while the base model only features 16GB.
A meagre graphics score does indicate this laptop may struggle with intense video editing, with the Acer Swift Edge 16 pulling ahead in this contest. But this LG laptop isn’t really designed for such workloads.
The 1TB SSD provides plenty of storage space, while the speed of the drive is plenty fast with a read score of 6602MB/s and write score of 4973MB/s – this means boot up times and loading up applications should be zippy.
Software
- Runs on Windows 11
- A little bit of LG bloatware
- Apps offer same features as Windows
The LG Gram 17 (2023) runs on Windows 11, although does have a fair bit of bloatware to contend with.
Some may appreciate the LG Smart Assistant application, which allows you to easily make a great number of tweaks, such as activating dark mode, adjusting fan noise, maximising battery life and setting the screen’s colour temperature. This is all stuff you can do on Windows 11, but it may prove handy to those who find Windows’ settings a little intimidating.
There’s also the LG Security Guard, which will attempt to monitor suspicious activity while you’re away from the laptop. LG claims it decreases the danger of theft of the laptop, but I’m not convinced by that. If you’re conscious about security, there’s a lot more useful software out there.
And then there’s LG’s own Update & Recovery application that helps to keep your laptop’s drivers updated. I don’t really understand why LG bothered with this, as Windows already offers this exact functionality. That’s my overall feelings on all of the LG bloatware actually, as it doesn’t really offer anything new. Still, it takes up little storage space and can easily be ignored.
Battery life
- Lasted for 8 hours and 40 minutes in our tests
- MacBook Air offers far better stamina
One of the key drawbacks to a big-screen laptop is that it can often have a detrimental effect on battery life. However, LG has managed to get the balance right here, with some surprisingly good stamina.
Our battery tests showed that the LG Gram 17 (2023) can last up to 8 hours and 40 minutes on a single charge. That’s an almost identical result to the Acer Swift Edge 16, and even better stamina than smaller laptops such as the Dell XPS 13 Plus (2023).
Apple still remains victorious in this contest, with the MacBook Air able to last up to 15 hours of web browsing on a single charge. Our benchmarks backed this up, with the Apple laptop easily being able to outlast the working day with juice to spare.
Don’t let that diminish the stamina of the LG Gram 17 though, as the lightweight laptop strikes a brilliant balance between battery life, performance and portability.
Latest deals
Should you buy it?
You want a super-portable big-screen laptop
If you want a 17-inch screen on a laptop for improved workflow and more cinematic video, but also want a PC that’s supremely portable, then the LG Gram 17 is your best bet.
You want a powerful laptop
The LG Gram 16 lags behind the competition when it comes to performance power. Both the Acer Swift Edge 16 and MacBook Air 15-inch are better in this respect.
Final Thoughts
I love using the LG Gram 17 (2023), as the big 17-inch screen makes a huge difference to my productivity. Importantly, the lightweight design also makes it possible to lug this laptop to the office and back on a daily basis without issue.
That party trick isn’t quite as impressive now the Acer Swift Edge 16 and MacBook Air 15-inch have arrived on the scene. The Acer also flaunts a nicer screen thanks to the move to OLED, while the MacBook has a more luxorious design.
The LG Gram 17 does have a slightly larger screen though, so it remains a great buy if maximising screen space is your number one priority. Otherwise, check out our Best Laptop and Best 17-inch Laptop guides for even more options.
How we test
Every laptop we review goes through a series of uniform checks designed to gauge key things, including build quality, performance, screen quality and battery life.
These include formal synthetic benchmarks and scripted tests, plus a series of real-world checks, such as how well it runs popular apps.
We test the performance via both benchmark tests and real-world use.
We test the screen with a colorimeter and real-world use.
We test the battery with a benchmark test and real-world use.
We used as our main laptop for at least a week.
You might like…
FAQs
The LG Gram 17 lasted 8 hours and 40 minutes on a battery drain test, which cycles through productivity workloads.
The LG Gram 17 (2023) is currently listed as £1,699.97 on the LG website, but you can find it cheaper at third-party retailers.
Trusted Reviews test data
Full specs
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
