Laptops are great until you start trying to multitask on their tiny screens. Ultrabooks offer plenty of portability, but they are regularly driving screen sizes down into 14-inch and 13-inch territory. Fortunately, there are still more than a handful of 17-inch laptops on the scene that deliver plenty of performance and a much bigger screen that will let you more easily see everything your doing.
Some of the best 17-inch laptops even manage a decent level of portability thanks to compact bezels and utlra-thin chassis, making for a laptop that's comparable in size and weight to older 15-inch laptops. We've rounded up a handful of 17-inch models that can deliver on portability, performance, and even gaming. Some of the models can even deliver on all three. So, whether you want a desktop-replacement-style machine or an on-the-go workstation, you'll find something to fit your needs here. If you're ready to select your next 17-inch laptop, have a look out our top picks below.
TL;DR – These are the Best 17-inch Laptops:
- MSI GE76 Raider
- HP 17
- Lenovo ThinkPad P17 Gen 2
- Razer Blade 17
- Alienware X17
- LG Gram 17
- Gigabyte Aero 17
- Dell XPS 17
1. MSI GE76 Raider
Best 17-inch Gaming Laptop
The MSI GE76 Raider is a beefy gaming laptop, and it uses its extra size to pack in some serious power. You’re getting a laptop that you can game with on the go or dock at a desk and treat like a compact desktop PC with the kind of performance it offers. Inside the MSI GE76 Raider we’ve picked out, you’ll find an octa-core Intel Core i7-11800H paired with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 graphics processor – a pairing which can chew through most games.
Ths MSI GE76 Raider will take good advantage of that performance under the hood as its display is a 1080p IPS panel that can run at 360Hz for super-smooth visuals. If you want more resolution, you can connect the GE76 Raider to an external monitor or TV and output up to 4K at 120Hz or even 8K at 60Hz.
2. HP 17
Best 17-inch laptop for those on a budget
You can get a big screen and modest performance on a budget with the HP 17. This laptop comes in at just over $600, but it’ll land you with a sharp 1080p display for getting all your work done. Though more affordable laptops tend to have dimmer displays, as is the case with the 250-nit panel here, HP has gone with an anti-glare design that’ll still help provide visibility in brighter conditions.
The computer runs on an AMD Ryzen 5 5500U six-core CPU, giving it a healthy dose of power for whatever work you want to throw at it. It’s even offering 8GB of memory instead of the 4GB you might find on some budget machines. At 5.25 pounds, it’s not even all that heavy for a laptop of its size.
3. Lenovo ThinkPad P17 Gen 2
Best 17-inch work laptop
When you’ve got serious work to do, you need a serious work machine. The Lenovo ThinkPad P17 Gen 2 is just that. This is a beefy laptop, coming in at over eight pounds and over an inch thick, but you’re getting serious muscle in there.
Not only does the Lenovo ThinkPad P17 Gen 2 come running on an Intel Core i7-11800H processor but it also fits in an Nvidia RTX A2000 graphics processor for professional workloads with Tensor and RT cores on board. You’ll get a great view of everything you’re doing on the laptop, too, thanks to its 500-nit display, which has an anti-glare finish and support for Dolby Vision. Let’s not forget it’s also an Ultra HD display, so everything will be extra sharp.
4. Razer Blade 17
Best 17-inch laptop for video editing
You might think of Razer as a gaming brand, but the Razer Blade 17 is especially well suited to helping you edit video. That’s thanks in no small part to the gorgeous display Razer has put on this laptop. The Razer Blade 17 features a 4K, 120Hz touchscreen display that has 100% coverage of the Adobe RGB color space and comes factory calibrated. That’s color you’ll be able to rely on and incredible sharpness for a 17.3-inch display.
Of course, video editing isn’t a task you want to undertake on a low-power machine, but Razer has you covered. This model comes sporting an Intel Core i9-11900H processor and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080. It may only start with 1TB of PCIe 4.0 NVMe storage, but it has a second M.2 slot available, and both slots are upgradeable.
5. Alienware X17
Best 17-inch desktop replacement
Your friends can show you their beefy gaming desktops all day, but they’ll have a much harder time taking all that performance on the go. Meanwhile, the Alienware X17 gaming laptop can give you power you can flaunt in their faces wherever you go. This gaming laptop is a little weighty at 6.65 pounds, but that’s not so shockingly heavy when you find out everything it’s packing, and the laptop is even impressively thin at just 0.84 inches thick.
The Alienware X17 model we’ve picked out boasts a 17.3-inch UHD display with a 120Hz refresh rate. Helping improve the visibility of that panel is an anti-glare finish and a 500-nit max brightness. Running 4K/120Hz games takes some serious muscle, so the Intel Core i7-10800H and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 inside will certainly come in handy. Plug in your favorite mouse and headphones and you’ll be good to game wherever you go. Given the portability, you can also easily move it from your desk to your TV, never having to fuss with different platforms and game libraries from place to place.
6. LG Gram 17
Most portable 17-inch laptop
Look, 17 inches is a lot of space, but LG makes it feel considerably less with its Gram 17 laptop which measures just 2.95 pounds. The chassis is slight and LG wastes no space with the ultra-thin bezels. But on top of that, the Gram 17 is a great performer behind a bright and gorgeous IPS display boasting a 2,560 x 1,600 resolution. There’s an Intel UHD 620 GPU and we recommend going with the Intel Core i7 processor for the best performance.
However, this isn’t a machine for heavy gaming. Rather, it’s an impressive all-rounder in an enticing design – the 17 hours of battery life is just the icing on the cake.
7. Gigabyte Aero 17
Best 17-inch Laptop For Video Editing
You'll be able to edit your video with fine detail on the Gigabyte Aero 17. This laptop puts its 17.3-inch display to work housing the 8+ million pixels of its 4K panel. It's not just the resolution that matters here, though. The monitor also supports HDR and is X-Rite Pantone Certified, so you can do color-sensitive work right on the built-in display, making this a portable workstation worth its salt.
To be a great workstation, a laptop needs plenty of might, and the Gigabyte Aero 17 has that in the form of an Intel Core i7-10870 and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070. You'll have plenty of memory to run programs with 32GB of DDR4, and you can keep large project files on the 4TB of fast, NVMe SSD storage. If that wasn't good enough, this laptop's 5.5-pound weight and 99.9Whr battery make it a portable beast.
8. Dell XPS 17
Best Ultra Thin 17 Inch Laptop
So, you want the big screen of a 17-inch laptop, but you want the sleek look of a thin-and-light ultrabook? Luckily, Dell has the XPS 17. This is the big brother to the ever-popular XPS 13, and it shows. From outward appearances, little has changed aside from the size. You're still getting the bright, metal exterior and the dark carbon fiber finish around the keyboard. It has a massive trackpad for easy navigation, and a soid keyboard flanked by two large speakers (a trade-off if you'd hoped for a number pad.)
Inside, this Dell XPS 17 is powered by a solid Intel Core i7-10750H processor for speeds that'll handle work just fine, and there's an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Ti that can keep up with light 3D work or some modest gaming. Naturally, Dell provides an exceptional view for your work as well with its 1,920 x 1,200 display that hits a bright 500 nits for easy visibility. It all comes packed into a chassis that's only 0.77 inches at its thickest point.
What to Look For in a 17-inch laptop
Buying a laptop of any sort requires detailed research, and we wouldn’t want you rushing into any decisions with foolish abandon. Here are some things to consider first.
Screen resolution: 17 inches means more screen real estate, but bigger also doesn’t necessarily mean better. We’d recommend that any laptop you buy has a resolution of at least 1080p (1,920 x 1,080) which is Full HD.
CPU: It’s easy to get tangled in numbers when comparing laptop specs, but when it comes to CPU (the processor) here’s what we recommend. First, don’t go lower than an Intel Core i5 processor if you must: this will give you enough power for all the essential tasking. Second, if you plan to use your machine for intense gaming, video editing, or other high-power productivity reasons, look for something with more cores, ideally a quad-core processor.
RAM: Again, the higher the number here, the more power you’re getting. Some laptops come with 4GB of RAM which is an acceptable baseline but won’t afford you much grunt. Really, you want 8GB at the very least and more if you plan to use your laptop for heavy tasks.
Hugh Langley is a tech journalist who’s fascinated by wearables, health tech, the smart home, and more. You can find him tweeting (often nonsense) over at @hughlangley.
Mark Knapp is a regular contributor to IGN and an irregular Tweeter on Twitter @Techn0Mark
