LG Gram Pro 17 (2023) Review

Giant 17-inch laptops just don't qualify as ultraportable, but the LG Gram 17 that won a PCMag Editors' Choice award in July 2022 did by coming in at just 2.9 pounds. The 2023 model, dubbed the Gram Pro 17 ($1,999.99 as tested; up to $2,299.99), misses the 3-pound ultraportable cutoff, at 3.2 pounds, likely due to the extra weight of a discrete Nvidia GeForce graphics chip (and its cooling) that's faster than the previous version's Intel integrated graphics. But it's still an amazingly light and portable big-screen desktop replacement, though its steeper price and its flimsy feel keep it from repeating as an Editors' Choice winner.

Too Rich or Too Thin? 

For 2023, the Gram gains not only a 4GB GeForce RTX 3050 graphics processor but a new 13th Generation Intel processor, the Core i7-1360P (four Performance cores, eight Efficient cores, 16 threads). Our $1,999.99 test unit carries 16GB of memory and a 1TB NVMe solid-state drive (SSD), as well as Windows 11 Home. You can double the memory and storage for $300 more.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

As before, the Gram Pro 17 comes in a black magnesium alloy chassis that measures 0.7 by 14.9 by 10.2 inches. For comparison's sake, the Dell XPS 17 has a slightly smaller footprint—it's 0.77 by 14.7 by 9.8 inches—but is much heftier, with non-touch-screen models weighing in at 4.8 to the LG's 3.2 pounds.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

The 17-inch non-touch display is a 2,560-by-1,600-pixel QHD IPS panel with today's fashionable 16:10 aspect ratio beset by narrow bezels. This screen also features a variable refresh rate, with the Windows display settings tab letting you choose 60Hz, 72Hz, or 144Hz—or automatic switching between the latter two depending on which app is in use.

LG says the Gram Pro 17 has passed MIL-STD 810H tests against the bumps and jolts of travel. That reassurance is welcome, because the laptop didn't fare well in my usual subjective sturdiness checks: Not only will you find noticeable bowing by pressing the keyboard deck, but you'll be alarmed if you grasp or torque the screen corners. Nearly all notebooks show a little flex or wiggle at the top of the display, but the Gram's whole screen warps and bends, feeling thin and frail. Carrying the closed system feels fine, but the Pro 17 may be too light for its own good. 

(Credit: Molly Flores)

On the positive side, the LG is positively loaded with ports for such a slim system. You'll find two USB4 Thunderbolt 4 ports (either suitable for the compact AC adapter) on the left side along with an audio jack and an HDMI monitor port. On the right flank are two USB 3.2 Type-A ports and a microSD card slot—plus a security lock slot. Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth are standard.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

Packed With Modern Conveniences 

You won't find any fingerprint reader here, but the webcam has IR face recognition for Windows Hello logins. LG Security Guard software ties into Windows Hello to send you an email alert if a stranger tries to use the PC while you're away, while Mirametrix Glance uses the webcam to help you focus in various ways if you're using multiple monitors. The camera records in 1080p instead of the now-lowball 720p resolution, and it captures well-lit and colorful images with minimal static. 

Bottom-mounted speakers pump out sound that's neither especially loud nor particularly impressive. Its sound is flat and rather hollow with largely absent bass, though you can make out overlapping tracks. Dolby Access software provides dynamic, game, movie, music, and voice presets along with an equalizer. Music sounded otherwise harsh when played in presets other than music.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

LG's keyboard provides two levels of backlight brightness and a numeric keypad. The top-row keys including Escape and Delete are tiny, and I couldn't find a shortcut (it's usually Fn+Escape) to toggle them between their system shortcuts and F1 through F12. This is an option in the LG Smart Assistant software control panel. A plus, however, is that pressing the Fn key alone pops up a menu of handy shortcuts. 

You'll find Home and End keys (that double as Page Up and Page Down) above the numeric pad, but they seemed to register as Control+Home and Control+End when I tried them. I was happier using Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down on the keypad (7, 1, 9, and 3 respectively) with Num Lock off. This keyboard's typing feel is shallow but relatively comfortable and crisp, and the laptop's decent-size buttonless touchpad glides and clicks smoothly.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

Aside from its light weight, the Gram Pro 17's best feature is its screen. This big IPS panel is quite bright and vividly colorful, with high contrast and wide viewing angles. White backgrounds are pristine, and colors are punchy here, with sharp details. Plus, the display tilts back quite far (though not a flat 180 degrees). 

LG Smart Assistant lets you adjust screen color temperature, toggle dark mode or an easy-on-the-eyes study mode, toggle AI microphone noise cancellation, and control fan noise with a choice of cooling modes. (We used the high setting for our benchmarks but the Pro 17 remained quiet.) Both LG Sync on Mobile and Intel Unison help link the laptop with your smartphone.

Testing the 2023 LG Gram Pro 17: A Big-Screen Brouhaha 

As another 17-inch desktop replacement, the Dell XPS 17 was an obvious candidate for our benchmark comparisons, but we didn't have many other 17-inch non-gaming laptops to choose from. (The MSI CreatorPro X17 workstation was just too expensive, at $4,900.) 

So, we filled out the charts with three 16-inch systems: the Editors' Choice award-winning HP Envy 16 consumer model, the corporate-centric Lenovo ThinkPad T16, and the Acer Swift Edge 16, which undercuts even the Gram's featherweight status at just 2.6 pounds.

Productivity Tests 

Our main benchmark, UL's PCMark 10, simulates a variety of real-world productivity and content-creation workflows to measure overall performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheeting, web browsing, and videoconferencing. We also run PCMark 10's Full System Drive test to assess the load time and throughput of a laptop's storage. 

Two other benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while HandBrake 1.4 is an open-source video transcoder we use to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better). We normally also run Geekbench 5.4 Pro by Primate Labs, but it crashed violently and repeatedly on the Gram. 

Our final productivity test is PugetBench for Photoshop by Puget Systems, which uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe's famous image editor to rate a PC's performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It's an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.

The LG performed well here, collecting a couple of silver and a couple of bronze medals in our performance tests. Its Photoshop score was a little disappointing, but its fine screen still makes it a worthy image or video editing station. The Gram Pro 17 isn't necessarily a powerhouse, but it will likely be able to stand up to most of what you throw at it without much issue.

Graphics Tests 

We test Windows PC graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark, Night Raid (more modest, suitable for laptops with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). 

To further benchmark GPUs, we also run two tests from the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which stresses both low-level routines like texturing and high-level, game-like image rendering. The 1440p Aztec Ruins and 1080p Car Chase tests, rendered offscreen to accommodate different display resolutions, exercise graphics and compute shaders using the OpenGL programming interface and hardware tessellation, respectively. The more frames per second (fps), the better.

These results were predictable, with the GeForce RTX 3050-equipped Gram having easily trounced the machines with integrated graphics yet pummeled by those with higher-ranking Nvidia GPUs. This laptop will definitely satisfy casual and even more-than-casual 1080p gamers, though it's not designed to keep pace with hardcore gaming laptops. (That's when you would want to consider something like that aforementioned MSI system.)

Battery and Display Tests 

We test laptop battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel(Opens in a new window)) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off. 

To test laptop displays, we also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Windows software to measure a laptop screen's color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).

As for battery life, the Gram Pro 17 was a clear winner—nearly 18 hours of unplugged life (with screen refresh set to 60Hz) is remarkable for a laptop so big yet so light. The LG's display also proudly hoists the IPS banner against snazzy OLED screens (the ThinkPad T16's economy panel was woefully outclassed by the others), with first-rate color representation and ample brightness.

Verdict: A Nifty Niche Player 

When we reviewed the 17-inch Gram in 2022 it cost $1,799.99—this year's model is $200 more. That isn't excessive considering the switch to discrete graphics (though the RTX 3050 is on the low side among current Nvidia GPUs) but, like the Gram Pro 17's weight surpassing 3 pounds, it makes the system a bit less appealing. We're also unimpressed by the keyboard and unnerved by the screen's wobbling and bowing. 

Still, the Gram Pro 17 has a lot in its favor. If you set out to buy one of the biggest- and brightest-screened desktop replacement laptops, you'd probably not expect such feathery weight or long battery life. That makes the LG a pleasant surprise if not quite a repeat Editors' Choice winner.