
LG Releases Gram 17 Laptop: An Ultra-Thin Notebook with a 17.3in Display - p1esk
https://www.anandtech.com/show/13681/lg-gram-17-available-ultra-thin-laptop-with-a-17-inch-display
======
walterbell
What a nice collection of features ignored by other OEMs: wide range of screen
choices (13.3, 14, 15.6, 17), USB C/A ports, headphone jack, 16:10 ratio, 72Wh
battery, micro-SD, ethernet port.

Whiskey Lake is supposed to have hardware fixes for Meltdown and L1TF, which
should boost performance and battery life.

(Edit: CPU for the 17" is Whiskey Lake, the others appear to be Kaby Lake
Refresh, e.g. LG Gram 13.3:
[https://www.lg.com/us/support/products/documents/13Z980-A.AA...](https://www.lg.com/us/support/products/documents/13Z980-A.AAS7U1%20Spec%20Sheet.pdf)

No info on key travel)

Might there be a vPro configuration with a TPM, for running QubesOS?

~~~
killjoywashere
Nice pics, but the side view is telling: not nearly as thin as it appeared.
One almost wonders if the designers designed it around the marketing pictures.
Which in and of itself is a huge red flag. Maybe competitive with a 2012
MacBook Pro, maybe? But injection molded plastic and Windows. No thanks.

~~~
leetbulb
Yeah, looked great until I saw the side [0]. Would be great if it had a larger
trackpad, too. If it's actually plastic, that's a complete deal-breaker.

[0] [https://images.anandtech.com/doci/13681/lg-
gram-17-io.jpg](https://images.anandtech.com/doci/13681/lg-gram-17-io.jpg)

~~~
gideonparanoid
Looking at the Macbook in front of me & back to this laptop on my screen & the
trackpad looks absolutely tiny. Large trackpads are good! Seems odd that it's
so small.

~~~
llampx
I wonder if its not the relative size that's throwing you off. Bigger keyboard
= smaller-looking trackpad.

The MacBook Pro 2016+ shows that bigger isn't necessarily better when it comes
to input devices.

~~~
gideonparanoid
Yeah, it's probably a function of it being a larger laptop. & it's, of course,
subjective. I saw this typing on my 2016 MacBook Pro, & I personally love the
giant trackpad.

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jtreminio
I'd give bunches of money for a 17", 4k laptop with a great keyboard AND NO
numberpad.

System76's come close, except for that pesky numberpad.

I work from home, portability isn't my top priority. I wouldn't mind a heavier
laptop with a very thick base sitting on my lap because I use a laptop tray
which prevents the heat from burning my legs. Otherwise I'm at my desk with
the laptop on a vertical holder.

I do hate numberpad because I would never use it and it moves the touchpad to
left of center.

~~~
ericabiz
Try a Dell XPS 15 9570. 15” but 4K. No number pad. I really like mine.

~~~
quasse
That or the Dell Precision 5520 or 5530. Just got one this week and it's so
nice to have a 0.75" thick laptop that still has space for 32GB of RAM, two
hard drives, discrete graphics and a Xeon processor. Not to mention the very
nice 4k display.

------
drcode
Anyone have a guess how well Linux would run on such a beast? How are the
driver issues these days? Could I likely get by without manually compiling
drivers and without putting magic incantations in config files?

~~~
appleiigs
I have a 14” 2018 LG Gram and I run Pop!_OS on it with minimal config. The
only thing I did was leave 100% scaling, but put on 1.5x font size (via gnome-
tweaks). Might be different on a 17”. Haven’t found any issues at all, however
my uses are quite pedestrian. Almost just terminal, Pycharm, browsers. Printer
and wifi are all fine.

I ran ElementaryOS on it but then I ran into a few things: 1) troubles getting
audio out on HDMI instead of internal speakers (look Mom, no dongles!), 2)
video in Chrome browser is broken, 3) some sort of high pitch, very loud tone
at startup each time after updating system software.

On Pop, I’m really happy with it. 14” is incredibly light and battery lasts
all day for me. Keyboard is good - Ctrl button on outside left where it should
be.

~~~
kjeetgill
Huh. Pop and elementary are both Ubuntu based. I wonder why they gave such
different experiences. Do they vary kernel builds by that much?

~~~
ekianjo
Doesn't Elementary uses the LTS version of Ubuntu? That may explain
differences in hardware support since it would use an older kernel.

------
slacka
Would love to see the 16:10 ratio come back in vogue. For the web and with so
many productivity apps having a ribbon UI, a little extra vertical real estate
makes a huge difference.

~~~
Technetium_Hat
Why not just go all the way to 3:2 like the surface laptop? It's better for
anything but full screen video.

~~~
zokier
> It's better for anything but full screen video.

Not better for having two windows side by side. Considering that we're talking
about 17" laptop here, that isn't especially far fetched use case.

------
rubenerd
Looks amazing, I also miss my massive MacBook Pro's size. But the 17-inch
screen only has the same resolution as my 13-inch MacBook Pro, like so many PC
laptops. If it had an equivalent DPI, it'd be _very_ compelling.

~~~
roboyoshi
And for some reason it's totally normal to increase the phone screen size. I
don't understand..

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reaperducer
OK, for the first time since 2003, I'm tempted to get a non-Apple laptop.

I loved both of my 17" MacBook Pros (2003 and 2007, both of which still work).
But Apple doesn't care about big screens and proper keyboards anymore, so this
is very attractive to me.

~~~
lunchables
Things to keep in mind with LG. And I am NOT a Mac user ("BTW I use Arch"),
but I have owned a Mac in the past (2010 Macbook Air). I am NOT trying to talk
you out of this, but you should go into this understanding the trade-offs you
will make.

\- The build quality will not be like what you are used to. The entire chassic
will flex and the keyboard will feel more like a trampoline than the keyboard
on your Mac.

\- Customer support will be useless, just write that off now.

\- Keyboard layout might be a little bizarre, I have not looked at this one.
[Ed: just looked, wow thats bizarre. Tiny keys, weird arrows, num pad is
strange. Just take a good look before you pull the trigger. Not saying its
bad, just ... odd. OK maybe bad.]

\- Webcam will probably be worse than you are used to

\- Trackpad will be light years behind your Mac both in feel and how it
performs. Apple just has this figured out and no one else can touch it. Might
still be "good" just wont be "Apple good".

\- Quality control will be really poor compared to Apple, you might have dead
pixels in the display or other build quality or QA issues.

\- Prepare to spend the first 15 minutes peeling off stickers and the glue
from them.

\- You will probably want to just wipe it and re-install Windows or install
Linux vs "de-crapwaring" it. No idea what Linux support will be like and I
would be hesitant to be the first one to buy one to find out. And this is from
someone who runs Linux exclusively.

~~~
p1esk
Are you saying this from your first hand, recent experience using LG Gram
laptop on every day basis?

------
whalesalad
I was at Fry's electronics about 30 minutes ago to just wander around and look
at stuff. These Gram laptops caught my eye but after holding them in my hand,
I was really disappointed. They didn't feel dense... like they were light but
also felt low quality. The materials didn't feel sturdy. They feel nerf. The
nicest PC hardware I saw was from Microsoft or Samsung.

~~~
appleiigs
When I got my 14", I thought the same thing, but it might be due to how light
it is. LG boast military grade durability if that means anything. I've carried
mine in a duffle-bag for the past year and no problems at all. I'm pretty
rough with my laptops. I've broken 2 macbooks previously (HDMI port, logic
board).

------
vermaden
There are so many laptops available today, but NONE of them provides real
7-row keyboard ... one of the reasons I still use 2011 ThinkPad laptops - for
the convenience of having _INS /DEL HOME/END PGUP/PGDN_ top-right layout
really keyboard layout.

~~~
smiley1437
Look for the Thinkpad 25th anniversary edition, it has a 7 row keyboard with
more modern (t470) guts but expensive af

~~~
vermaden
I knew that one, but it was 5000 pieces limited production and its no longer
available.

[https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-t-
ser...](https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-t-
series/ThinkPad-25/p/22TP2TTTP25)

... and besides that one no other modern laptop has 'real' keyboard.

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puranjay
You can release the best possible hardware on a laptop and I'm still going to
pass because of Windows 10.

Windows 10 is easily the worst edition of Windows I've ever used. It forces
you to update and breaks the entire damn machine at every go

~~~
bufferoverflow
Bullshit. Windows 10 is the best Windows ever made. Never had a problem with
it, and the updates are generally great. They had one recent one that went bad
for a small number of users. None of our machines had any problems.

My Ubuntu desktop and my Ubuntu server in comparison are constantly having
problems, especially when I upgrade the distro to the next version.

~~~
lunchables
>Bullshit. Windows 10 is the best Windows ever made. Never had a problem with
it, and the updates are generally great. They had one recent one that went bad
for a small number of users. None of our machines had any problems.

Pulled updates because of files being deleted, network drives not working
after updates, updates installing without user confirmation on reboot forcing
people to wait for Windows to get done. Automatically re-installing games into
the start menu even on "Professional" version of Windows 10. Start menu
searching that is inconsistent and slow. Invasive privacy settings that have a
tendency to "accidentally" reset themselves after updates.

This is all well documented on the web, feel free to do some searching. I
cannot fathom how anyone can believe Windows 10 is the best version of
Windows.

>My Ubuntu desktop and my Ubuntu server in comparison are constantly having
problems, especially when I upgrade the distro to the next version.

[https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-forced-downloads-
we...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-forced-downloads-we-wont-do-
them-again-pledges-microsoft/)

And besides the forced upgrades, the amount of issues people had with Windows
7 to 10 upgrades might have been the worst I've seen of any version of
Windows.

------
genpfault
All that space and they couldn't be bothered to put in full-sized arrow keys.

~~~
nikanj
It's weird and frustrating to see how laptop manufacturers always make basic
mistakes like this. My favorite was placing ports so that you can't have an
USB thumb drive and the charger at the same time.

I guess the manufacturing pipeline really don't allow for prototypes, so by
the time someone is using the device, they've already made twenty million of
them and it's too late to change the design.

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xiphias2
I love a lot of things in my LG gram 14 inch, except the poor speakers (my
mobile phone has a better one) and the fact that I can't use it outside in the
sun.

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JohnTHaller
If only it had an MX150 or a Ryzen 2700U in there for some graphics goodness.

------
akhilcacharya
Is there still a demand for larger screened laptops these days? I use a
relatively compact machine (13 inch rMBP) which certainly isn't the largest
device on the block, but I still struggle to use it on an airplane tray table.
What's the appeal of a thin-and-light 17 incher?

~~~
canuckintime
> I still struggle to use it on an airplane tray table.

... it's a LAPtop. Why bother with the airplane tray when it's thin and light
enough to use on your lap?

> What's the appeal of a thin-and-light 17 incher?

Most mainstream customers don't need a powerful CPU/GPU (see success of
MacBook Air). All they want is thin, light and a big beautiful screen.

~~~
chx
> All they want is thin, light and a big beautiful screen.

I disagree with the thin part. I have yet to see anyone care whether a laptop
is 1" or .7". This is a pointless marketing ploy, invented by Jobs. Yes,
lightness matters. But we have seen (and I actually owned one) incredibly
light laptops mostly from Japan well before Jobs invented the thin craze.

~~~
canuckintime
> I have yet to see anyone care whether a laptop is 1" or .7".

Careful there. I didn't say mainstream customers care about having the
'thinnest' laptop. I agree that a distinction between 1" or 0.7" is pointless.
They do care about having a 'thin' laptop. It's largely marketing but also
partly ergonomics, especially at the 17" size to reduce volume

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jerrysievert
it looks great! definitely a good offering from LG, with the exception of a
few small things:

* at 17" I'd like more memory available than 16gb

* same for more than 512gb of disk

* pretty small trackpad for all that space, make use of it!

I'd be very interested to see how well it sells - I know a few people that
swear by 17" laptops, and was sad to see apple exit that market (for them, 13"
is easily a large enough laptop for me)

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
The big negative for me is lack of Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt provides so many
future options (eg external gpu, etc) that I refuse to purchase a premium
laptop without Thunderbolt support.

~~~
nroach
with the igpu and such a nice screen its a shame TB isn't an option. This
seems otherwise perfect for work-on-the-go and plugging into a eGPU at home in
the evenings.

------
ngcc_hk
No thunderbolt ... can’t have it as I need to access egpu for computation from
Time to time.

~~~
lallysingh
Cloud?

------
cpr
Damn, I miss my old “lunch tray” 17” MBP...

~~~
ianai
I never heard a good reason for cancelling that model. Presumably with modern
hardware they could be much more portable now. Imagine how much battery life
they could get if they had a 17” with one of the low power cpus and just fit
it with the largest battery they could?

~~~
wtallis
The practical limit for battery capacity is 100 Wh; beyond that you need
airline approval to travel with it. Apple's 17" Unibody MBP had a 95 Wh
battery, and when that was discontinued the 15" rMBP offered 95 or 99.5 Wh
until the Touchbar was added. If Apple were to reintroduce a 17" model, it
could only offer 19% higher battery capacity than the current 15", which means
it probably couldn't offer any better battery life.

I'd rather just see the 15" rMBP get a bit thicker so that it can have more
variety of I/O and stay at the ceiling for battery capacity.

~~~
gaius
_The practical limit for battery capacity is 100 Wh; beyond that you need
airline approval to travel with it._

Does that also apply if it’s two batteries, both physically removable, from
the outside? Just curious. SWMBO and I travel with can lights for diving, big
batteries but none individually over the limit.

~~~
dawnerd
Yeah, it’s per battery. I usually carry two nearly 100wh battery banks. Never
a problem. I imagine 100wh limit is what they’ve determined they can contain
if it catches fire. I believe they also offer exemptions for slightly more
with airline approval.

------
GordonS
> Meanwhile, the laptop weighs 1.33 kilograms

What?! The last 17" laptop I had the misfortune to be lumbered with was an HP
Zbook 17. I don't recall exactly, but it was easily _at least_ 4kg and about
1.75 inches thick!

I'm astonished they've got this so light and thin - will _definitely_ be
considering one when it's time for an upgrade, as I much prefer a larger
screen for coding!

------
adetrest
I wonder if the keyboard is like the newer macbooks. And of course the best
way to ruin a display is to make it glossy, which they did.

~~~
robocat
For the XPS 15, the choice is either: matte and non-touch; or glossy and touch
enabled.

I was told touch screens are always glossy.

~~~
ants_a
ThinkPad touchscreens are semi-matte.

------
exabrial
Apple is their own worst enemy. 3d Touch, Touchbars, horrible keyboards, etc
drive their material cost up and no one cares or uses these "features. It
seems OSX is the main attraction to their hardware these days; as it turns out
a lot a lot of manufacturers can get hardware "right".

------
b1gtuna
Hopefully this is the beginning of large screen laptop resurgence.

Has anyone _really_ extensively used an LG Gram as a daily? Does it hold up
well over time? The last thing I want is to have something break and wait 2
months for a warranty repair...

~~~
gabriel34
I have one, older generation. Holding up pretty well. The casing scratches
really easily though

------
djhworld
Just been looking at the 13"/14" models as I'm not that interested in a 17"
screen, disappointed to see (unless I'm mistaken) that there doesn't seem to
be a way of upgrading the RAM to > 8GB

------
Hextinium
Looks great but with many thin laptops especially 17 in models they look like
i can just bend them in half. This looks no different or am I missing
something?

------
maxxxxx
I wouldn't mind this as a Macbook. I kind of miss the old 17" Macbooks.

------
jammygit
19 hour battery life means what, 6 in real world use? Companies shouldn't be
allowed to exaggerate this number every single machine they build.

------
bitwize
God that thing looks like holy hell to type on.

------
java-man
I cannot believe this. All this space available and no separate PgUp/PgDn
keys?

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gigatexal
Under three pounds? Not bad! Does the ram go up or is it fixed at 16GB?

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ams6110
Useless on an airplane tray table.

