LG Gram 17 17Z90N Review: A light and mobile 17-inch laptop with a 16:10 display

[Redaktion]

With the Gram 17 17Z90N, LG delivers a feather-light 17-inch laptop that offers a display in the 16:10 format. The rest of the equipment is also fitting: Ice Lake processor, NVMe SSD, 16 GB of working memory (dual-channel mode), and Thunderbolt 3. All this is accompanied by outstanding battery life.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/LG-Gram-17-17Z90N-Review-A-light-and-mobile-17-inch-laptop-with-a-16-10-display.490186.0.html

[Veyron]

Incredible how badly they managed to screw up the 1065G7, making it no better than the 1035G7 and the 8565U.

Let's see what they do with Tiger Lake. Hopefully LG will get their head out of their a** and add 100-200 grams more of proper cooling.

No one asked them to make a 1350g 17" laptop. They could make it 1550g and it will still be an incredible offering and by far the lightest 17" laptop of that generation, and with a usable CPU to top it off. They can call it LG Gram Pro if they want to keep offering the useless 1350g one.

I'm aware of the LG Ultra, not interested in dGPUs.

[Petr Valkoun]

pitty it has such a bad CPU with just 4 cores and worse performance than its ilder version. if this would have ryzen 7 4800U, I would order it right away. maybe next time LG

[Yngmar]

Aha! Finally some more 16:10 goodness.

+++ 16:10 display!
++ With reasonable PPI!
- Glossy :(
- Not too bright - Dell XPS much better
+ Reasonable assortment of connections
- But no Ethernet (USB-C dongle apologetically included)
- Off-centre keyboard due to numpad.
- Stupid stickers
- No trackpoint
- MicroSD instead of SD-Card reader
-- Annoying to open up
-- Soldered memory
-- Finger-fryingly hot keyboard under load, centered at the home row!
+ fairly quiet
+ not ugly


For me it's not enough GPU and Intel instead of AMD CPU. But finally some more 16:10 displays appear, and credit for realizing that 1920x1200 is too low PPI at 17". Not quite good enough though, making it glossy and then saving on the brightness.

Oh, and what is this included "transparent rubber mat to protect the keyboard"? Is the machine so poorly designed that when closed, the keyboard rubs against the display? Am I expected to carry this rubber mat with me, remove it every time I open the lid, keep it somewhere it won't fly away and then put it back in before closing? Design better.

[yuio]

Where's the version with AMD CPU?  ;D
I like the screen resolution, maybe other companies will use this panel.

[Sterlinger]

Where's the version with AMD CPU?  ;D
I like the screen resolution, maybe other companies will use this panel.

no chance, the panel is from LG and exclusive for the Gram 17

[Walkeer_CZ]

the cooling would be ok for ryzen U series, its the  ice lake faulf this performs so badly

Incredible how badly they managed to screw up the 1065G7, making it no better than the 1035G7 and the 8565U.

Let's see what they do with Tiger Lake. Hopefully LG will get their head out of their a** and add 100-200 grams more of proper cooling.

No one asked them to make a 1350g 17" laptop. They could make it 1550g and it will still be an incredible offering and by far the lightest 17" laptop of that generation, and with a usable CPU to top it off. They can call it LG Gram Pro if they want to keep offering the useless 1350g one.

I'm aware of the LG Ultra, not interested in dGPUs.

[aaronw]

No one asked them to make a 1350g 17" laptop. They could make it 1550g and it will still be an incredible offering and by far the lightest 17" laptop of that generation, and with a usable CPU to top it off

I did ask for 1350g :) Usable CPU lol - omg))) Some people who like and follow tech developments seem to be a bit out of this world when it comes to understanding what other people actually need. This laptop is for work / study, i.e. for reading/editing documents and browsing internet, watching video occasionally. For this even a 5-year old Core m3 is perfectly fine. CPU performance here is almost irrelevant.

The real competition for this laptop are 13- and 14-inch models of similar weight. And it dramatically outperforms most of them (Macbook Pro 13, XPS 13, Surface Laptop 3, etc) in two major things: (1) much larger screen and hence much more comfortable to use (2) much better set of ports. And the battery life is among the best.

So for its target audience this laptop is almost ideal, and significantly better than anything else on the market. Having a very high quality webcam and speakers + a full-size SD reader would be nice, but again, for 99% these are fine.

In contrast, port selection of the supposedly good 13- and 14- inch options out there is total rubbish. I've seen people with Macbooks struggle countless times with first finding a USB-C adapter and then trying to make it work reliably when they had to present something... Or trying to figure out how they hell they can put in a USB stick from a colleague. Or having their neck stretched forward when writing something in Word using that tiny screen...

[Edgar112]

THey have new version with 10 gen U processor and gtx 1650

[Jesse]

I approve of any keyboard that adds a full size numpad.  If you can't add the double wide zero key or the double height enter and plus keys, JUST DON'T BOTHER.  (I'm looking at you Asus).

However, LG AGAIN screws up and makes the screen glossy.  When will these guys learn?   Gotta pass again because of the glossy screen.

[Jojo Kracko]

I see these are going on sale now.  Clearing out the old stock before CES in January.  I sure hope the 2021 version comes with a matte screen.  The glossy one is the only reason I don't own one of these already.