The display is the component that best justifies the price. It features a 16:10, 2560×1600 IPS matte panel with a rated 99% DCI-P3 color gamut—and in practice, it truly delivers. The extra vertical space is a genuine asset; you can view an A4 page without having to squint at tiny text, and split-screen multitasking feels comfortable rather than cramped. Unlike low-gamut screens that look washed out or gray, this display offers colors that hold up well—what you see while editing photos or color-grading looks very similar to how it appears on a smartphone screen. Brightness, however, is a weak point. Rated at 300 nits, it’s fine for indoor use, but it struggles near a window or outdoors; even a bit of sunlight hitting the screen at an angle makes it so dim that you have to constantly adjust your viewing position. While the matte, anti-glare coating is a plus, it also reduces the overall clarity and "pop" of the image—it’s perfectly functional, but hardly a visual delight.

The keyboard and speakers are the areas where this machine has seen the most drastic cost-cutting. The keyboard features backlighting and a decent amount of key travel, but the consistency of the typing feel is frustratingly poor; some keys depress at the slightest touch, while others require deliberate, extra force—this is especially noticeable with the Space and Backspace keys, which can lead to uneven finger-pressure habits over time. The gaps between the keycaps are quite wide, making them prone to collecting dust. Furthermore, the row of proprietary LG shortcut keys cannot be customized, so if you accidentally press one, you’re simply stuck with the result. The speakers are even worse: two 1.5-watt drivers are tucked away on the bottom, producing a muffled sound. Once the volume goes above 60%, the audio turns into an indistinct, muddy mess where vocals and background music blend together—watching videos without headphones is practically a form of self-torture. The touchpad is generously sized and responsive to gestures, but the physical click lacks clear tactile feedback; occasionally, it fails to register a press, forcing you to click again.

As for performance, it really depends on your use case. With an i7-1260P processor and 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM, the laptop handles daily office tasks—such as juggling dozens of browser tabs with WeChat and music running in the background—smoothly and without any noticeable lag. However, don’t expect it to handle heavy workloads. Due to the limited thermal headroom within the "gram" chassis, this P-series chip is power-constrained: the long-term power limit (PL1) is capped at around 28W, with short bursts reaching 42W. The cooling system is quite cramped, and the fans are quick to ramp up. Launching a moderately demanding application causes the fans to jump instantly from silence to a high-pitched, whistling whine—it’s not necessarily loud, but the sound is piercing and quite distracting in a quiet room. LG includes a "Silent Mode" in their software that lets you manually throttle performance for the sake of quietness; the very existence of this feature implies that, by default, the laptop is anything but "silent." Trying to play games on it is a bad idea—the Iris Xe integrated graphics might handle older titles or lightweight indie games, but AAA games and large-scale online multiplayer titles are out of the question; the machine simply wasn't designed for such tasks.

On the bright side, LG hasn't been stingy with the ports. It features two Thunderbolt 4 ports—both supporting Power Delivery (PD) charging—along with an HDMI port, two USB-A 3.2 ports, a microSD card reader, and a headphone jack. However, since both Thunderbolt 4 ports are located on the same side, you don’t have the flexibility to choose which side to plug the charger into, which can make cable management on your desk a bit awkward. Another major strength is the 80Wh battery; in real-world, moderate-use scenarios, it reliably lasts 10 to 12 hours. You can head out in the morning without a charger and still have some juice left when you return home—a level of peace of mind that is almost impossible to find in other laptops of this size. The trade-off is that the included 65W charger is rather bulky, and because it relies exclusively on a Type-C connection, you’re in trouble if you forget the original adapter. Using a standard smartphone fast charger won't just result in slow charging—it might not even keep up with the power drain while the laptop is in use.

After long-term use, the area that requires the most attention isn't performance degradation, but rather the hinge and its connection to the chassis. While the magnesium alloy keeps things lightweight, the junction where the plastic and metal meet near the hinge can gradually loosen with repeated opening and closing. Some users have reported hinge wobbling—or even slight separation of the casing—after just six months. While this doesn't affect every unit, the occurrence rate is significant enough that if you’re buying one secondhand, you should test the screen at various angles, listen for any unusual noises, and check for any widening gaps where the lid meets the hinge. The display itself is quite robust; in one long-term test, the device survived a drop that dented the chassis but left the screen intact—the panel remained perfectly functional.

In short, the 17Z90Q-R.AAB8U1 has a very clear philosophy: it bets everything on the feat of packing a 17-inch display into a 1.35kg chassis. The long battery life is a welcome bonus, and the display quality is a genuine highlight. On the flip side, LG has made compromises in areas you interact with daily—the keyboard, speakers, chassis rigidity, and fan noise—to the point where you can’t help but feel it could have been better, yet LG simply chose not to make it so. This device is a perfect fit for a specific type of user: someone who carries a laptop daily—whether commuting or moving between classrooms—and spends most of their time reading documents, writing, or browsing the web. If you have no need for gaming or heavy-duty computing tasks, aren’t particularly fussy about audio quality, and can accept a machine that is impossibly lightweight—to the point where it might even feel a bit flimsy—then this could be the one for you. Conversely, it is clearly not for you if you care about the tactile feel of the keyboard, have even the slightest expectation for decent speakers, or require a rugged workhorse that can withstand rough handling. In such cases, there will inevitably be moments when this "gram" laptop leaves you feeling suddenly, intensely frustrated. It is by no means an all-rounder; rather, it is a device with extreme, lopsided strengths and weaknesses. Before choosing it, you must decide for yourself whether you can live with its glaring shortcomings.

LG 11600mAh/90WH 7.76V LBY122CM Battery for LG gram 17Z90Q-R.AAB8U1 17inch