LG Gram 17 (2021) review: Super lightweight and primed for productivity

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The LG Gram 17’s objective is apparent: to ship light-weight productiveness chops in a 17-inch laptop computer that’s lighter than some 13-inch laptops. It performs that job exceptionally effectively. LG’s pocket book additionally has a surprising show, and whereas it received’t break any efficiency data, its 11th-generation Tiger Lake CPU runs a number of purposes and office-bound duties with ease.

The LG Gram 17 additionally presents Thunderbolt 4 performance and a greater than all-day battery life, additional including to its versatility as a conveyable productiveness workhorse. Combined, these options make it a standout within the class.

This overview is a part of our ongoing roundup of the best laptops. Go there for info on competing merchandise and the way we examined them.

LG Gram 17 specs

The LG Gram 17 comes with a 1TB SSD and an Intel Core i7 CPU for $1,650 in black, or in silver for $1,775. But if you wish to scale down you could find 14-, 15-, and 16-inch variations as effectively, although these are named for his or her respective show sizes as an alternative. Here are the specs for our overview unit (mannequin 17Z90P)

• CPU: Intel Core i7-1165G7
• RAM: 16GB LPDDR4X/4266MHz
• GPU: Intel Iris Xe (Shared)
• Display: 17-inch IPS-grade WQXGA (2560×1600), 16:10 ratio
• Storage: 1TB (M.2 2280) NVMe SSD
• Right facet ports: 2x Thunderbolt 4 (energy supply/show), UFS/MicroSD card slot
• Left facet ports: 2x USB-A (3.2 Gen 2), HDMI 2.0 (as much as 60Hz), 3.5mm headphone jack
• Networking: Intel Wi-Fi 6AX201 (2.4Gbps),Bluetooth 5.1
• Dimensions: 14.97 x 10.24 x 0.7 inches (380.2 x 260.1 x 17.8mm)
• Weight: 2.98 lbs (1.35kg); 3.5 lbs (1.5kg) with AC adapter
• Battery sort: 80Whr battery
• Operating system: Windows 10 Home

LG Gram 17 design and construct

The LG Gram 17 sports activities a nanocarbon and magnesium chassis with silver “Gram” logos on the highest cowl and decrease bezel. At 14.7 x 10.25 inches, its chassis is extra compact than 17-inch laptops just like the Dell Inspiron 17 (16.3 x 11 inches) and Gigabyte Aero 17 (15.6 x 10.6 inches) but it surely’s nonetheless a sizeable presence in your desk. Despite this, it weighs simply 2.98 kilos, which is sort of exceptional. In comparability, the Gigabyte Aero 17 weighs 5.5 kilos.

LG

As a end result, the LG Gram 17 is an distinctive possibility for work and examine the place frequent journey is required. Its presence was barely noticeable in my satchel. Carrying it, I couldn’t assist however assume it’s the sort of system you’d need to be hauling if you wish to keep away from repetitive pressure accidents and postural issues.

A draw back to being so gentle although, means the Gram 17 does sometimes break a cardinal rule for laptops: Thou shalt not flex. The prime did barely concave in once I utilized some strain, and the display screen wobbled for a second every time I flipped it open. Did this stuff have an effect on my expertise? Not in any respect, since there are extra sweeteners to compensate.

For instance, there’s a neat hidden hinge that tucks beneath the decrease bezel, permitting the show to sit down increased up supplying you with a greater view of it. Its followers are remarkably quiet. The Gram additionally has U.S. army grade MIL-STD 810G sturdiness certification that reassured me, whereas it’d transfer considerably, it’s not going to interrupt simply.

Keyboard and trackpad

In our overview of the 2019 version of the LG Gram 17, one criticism was its keyboard. A full-sized quantity pad meant that some keys have been shrunk, affecting typing accuracy. Thankfully, this downside has been fastened within the 2021 Gram 17.

Although it nonetheless sports activities a full-sized quantity pad, the Gram 2021’s keyboard extends additional to the outer edges of the laptop computer’s body, offering room for generously proportioned keys. In specific, the Enter and Shift keys—ache factors within the earlier launch—are actually wider, decreasing the prospect of mistypes.

What’s extra, these keys have loads of journey, sound whisper quiet, and are tremendous bouncy. They’re additionally comfortably backlit with a delicate gentle blue gentle. All up, these options meant writing on the LG Gram 17 keyboard was by no means a chore.

Dominic Bayley/IDG

Jared Newman/IDG

When it got here to the laptop computer’s trackpad, the LG Gram 17 left an excellent impression. The rectangular formed pad felt silky-smooth to the touch and was the right dimension for my fingers to navigate. It additionally registered stable clicks and was completely responsive.

A shocking 16:10 show

I hoped the LG Gram 17’s WQXGA IPS-grade show could be of an identical high quality to LG’s premium TV panels. Thankfully, it’s. Although not a touchscreen, its 2560×1600-pixel show, which has twice the decision as a FHD panel, displayed movies and pictures with an nearly scientific crispness.

Specifically, there was an absence of the distortion I typically get when viewing photographs on some FHD panels. The panel’s 99 p.c DCI-P3 gamut protection additionally produced colour with a vibrancy you’d be laborious pressed to seek out in a FHD show.

Brightness is its one weak point. LG proffered a producer studying of 300 nits, which isn’t nice for a 2021 premium laptop computer (Most finances laptops are this dim or dimmer). With simply commonplace brightness and no matte show, glare could be a difficulty with outside viewing. You may need to stick indoors with the LG Gram 17.  

Some might imagine a complete 17-inch show is overkill, however the Gram 17’s panel is the right dimension for productiveness. The show, constructed to a 16:10 side ratio moderately than a 16:9 ratio, reaches 1600-pixels moderately than 1400-pixels excessive. This supplies 11 p.c extra display screen peak than a 16:9 panel and makes it simpler to have a number of massive home windows open directly.

Dominic Bayley/IDG

This additional room was notably helpful once I was cross-checking figures between spreadsheets. It’s a job that may be extremely irritating with out sufficient display screen area however was a breeze on the LG Gram 17’s generous-sized show.

As is usually the case with laptop computer audio system, the LG Gram’s two 2-Watt stereo audio system weren’t overly spectacular. The sound from the downward-facing audio system didn’t sound tinny, but it surely lacked a powerful bass presence. Videos are finest seen with headphones in.

Connectivity

The LG Gram 17 has an excellent complement of ports that ought to be an asset in any enterprise or instructional setting, together with 2x USB-A ports, an HDMI port, and an MicroSD card slot. One of the largest productiveness killers is having to attend too lengthy for recordsdata to switch to storage units however the Gram 17’s Thunderbolt 4 ports pace this up significantly. Having two at your disposal is very handy, permitting the Gram to learn from speedy energy supply and charging through one port, whereas on the similar time utilizing the opposite port to show as much as two 4K (with a dock) or one 8K shows.

LG Gram 17 efficiency

The addition of the Intel Core i7 11th-gen chipset is the 2021 LG Gram’s largest improve and a worthy one. The processor made gentle work of duties like shopping and Microsoft Office purposes. Our benchmarks verify its suitability for these light-weight duties, however not for CPU intensive duties. To be honest, that is comprehensible contemplating its weight constraints; heavier laptops typically have cooling benefits that equate to a efficiency benefit when issues warmth up.

For our comparisons we prevented the vanguard energy class of productiveness laptops that features laptops just like the not too long ago reviewed Acer Swift X and Dell XPS 17. These methods have parts like discrete graphics playing cards that put them in a league of their very own. Instead, we selected laptops with Intel i5 and i7 CPUs that includes built-in graphics which are principally unsuitable as dual-purpose productiveness/gaming methods. These included The Lenovo ThinkBook 14s Yoga, Surface Pro 7+, MSI Prestige 14 Tiger, Acer Swift 3, and Surface Pro 7+.

Dominic Bayley/IDG

Firstly, I ran the PCMark 10 benchmark that measures general laptop computer efficiency in workplace duties like net shopping, writing and spreadsheeting. In this take a look at the LG Gram 17 scored within the excessive 4900s, outperforming all of the comparisons besides the Lenovo ThinkBook 14s Yoga that options the identical Core i7-1165G7 processor.  

Dominic Bayley/IDG

The LG Gram once more positioned an in depth second the Lenovo ThinkBook 14s Yoga within the subsequent benchmark, the Cinebench R15 Multi-Threaded efficiency benchmark. This take a look at stresses all of the cores of our laptop computer’s CPU by rendering a graphics scene, offering a snapshot of how the laptop computer can deal with normal computing duties. This is an honest end result for the LG Gram 17 and bodes effectively for its means to deal with quite a lot of workplace purposes.  

Dominic Bayley/IDG

In our Cinebench single-threaded benchmark nonetheless, the LG Gram 17 slotted in under all however the Dell Latitude 7320 Detachable. This end result was sudden contemplating the LG Gram 17’s multi-threaded efficiency rating.

Dominic Bayley/IDG

Moving on to the HandBrake utility take a look at, a CPU intensive benchmark that we use to measure the time our laptop computer can encode a 32GB 1080P MKV file to Android Tablet. It’s an excellent analysis for not simply CPU efficiency, but in addition general system cooling, as HandBrake encoding takes for much longer than most canned benchmarks. In this take a look at the LG Gram 17 misplaced some efficiency floor, particularly to the Lenovo ThinkBook and Surface Pro 7+ that have been considerably quicker at this job.

Despite being 3-inches shorter, the Lenovo ThinkBook weighs 4.8 ounces greater than the LG Gram 17 and its cores most likely profit from the allocation of a few of this weight for cooling. The Surface Pro 7+ additionally surprisingly outperforms the Gram 17. These outcomes appear to verify that the Gram 17 will decelerate a bit throughout CPU intensive duties and suggests the Gram received’t excel at artistic work requiring 3D modelling, rendering, video enhancing, or CAD.

Dominic Bayley/IDG

In the 3DMark TimeSpy 1.2 benchmark, which supplies a have a look at the 3D graphics efficiency, the LG Gram 17 proved marginally higher than the Lenovo ThinkBook 14s Yoga and HP Elite Dragonfly Max however trailed far behind the Dell Latitude and Surface Pro 7+. Admittedly, this tells us what we already knew—the LG Gram isn’t any gaming rig or artistic powerhouse, however received’t allow you to down on the odd probability your organization presentation calls you to point out off some 3D artwork.

Battery life

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The Gram 17 topped the chart in our battery take a look at working for simply over 13 hours. The worth this longevity brings can’t be neglected, and due to the LG’s 17-inch dimension and WQXGA decision show I assumed it’d run the 80Whr battery down sooner. Nope. Along with its mystifying weight, LG have successfully eradicated the opposite main purchaser turnoff for bigger laptops—lack of battery life. This is an enormous win for the LG Gram 17.

The backside line

The LG Gram 17 is the lightest, most moveable 17-inch enterprise laptop computer with productiveness chops out there immediately, an achievement for which you’d anticipate to see some massive compromises. Yet its battery life is nice, its WQXGA show is roomy and a pleasure to make use of, and it holds its personal in processing energy for light-weight computing. All in all, the LG Gram 17 presents a mix effectively well worth the value.