Choosing a laptop inevitably involves a matter of compromise. A lightweight, more portable device means a small screen and a cramped keyboard. A larger laptop provides room to stretch out and usually more power—at the expense of portability. What’s an on-the-go creative to do? Is there a best of both worlds out there somewhere?
Enter LG with its Gram Pro 17, and I wouldn’t dream of burying the lede on this one: At 18 millimeters thick and weighing just 2.8 pounds, it is the thinnest and lightest 17-inch laptop I’ve ever seen, and it’s not even close.
Some points of comparison to start, in case you think I’m being dramatic. The 17.3-inch Acer Nitro 17 I reviewed recently weighs a hefty 6.3 pounds and is 34 mm thick. Back in 2018, HP’s Omen X 17 tipped the scales at 9.9 pounds and a beastly 41 mm of girth—and it didn’t even have the courtesy to include an optical drive with it. The only machine that is even in the ballpark is the oddball HP Spectre Foldable. With its removable keyboard, it weighs 3.5 pounds and is 23 mm thick—though that’s hardly an apples-to-apples comparison.
That’s kind of the point. There is no comparison for this laptop and no meaningful point of reference. Unboxing it felt like someone was pulling a prank on me. Did a child’s plastic toy somehow get shipped to me instead of a Windows laptop? Where’s the usual 1-pound power brick? LG has been making iterative versions of this laptop since 2019, but even the older models don’t reach the featherweight status of this 2024 model.