The Best 17-Inch Laptops for 2022

If you are a huge-photo form of person, you want a pc to match. You yearn for a pocket book (the word “pc” is a piece of a misnomer for those cumbersome thigh-crushers) that now no longer simplest capably replaces a computing device PC, however additionally offers you an easy-on-the-eyes, panoramic view of your workspace or gambling field. 

That approach a 17-inch version, one with the most important famous display screen length withinside the transportable universe.

Almost all 17-inch laptops characteristic shows that, technically, degree 17.three inches at the diagonal (simply as so-referred to as 15-inch laptops generally degree 15.6 inches nook to nook). 

That’s sufficient for a magnified view of complete HD or 1080p decision (1,920 via way of means of 1,080 pixels), or a snug view of better resolutions inclusive of 4K (three,840 via way of means of 2,160), that may make you squint on a smaller display screen.

Ready to move huge? Read on for a breakdown of our modern-day pinnacle, examined 17-inch fashions in a whole lot of consumer categories, observed via way of means of a manual to what to search for withinside the proper 17-inch pc for you.

How to Buy a 17-Inch Laptop: First, Is a 17-Inch Laptop Worth It?

If you are a multi-window consumer in your pc, or your eyesight is challenged, a 17-inch display screen may be a godsend.

 On the terrible facet, this display screen length dictates a cumbersome system—one that is regularly too huge for a briefcase, requiring a unique pc bag, backpack, or curler bag, and too heavy for greater than occasional delivery among domestic and workplace or cubicle and convention room.

Lenovo ThinkPad P17

The lightest 17-inch laptops, with one predominant exception, weigh in at simply below seven kilos. (The outlier, the LG Gram 17, is an exceptional case that is available in at below three kilos.) The heaviest, which might be continuously gaming fashions, tip the scales at a back-breaking 10 kilos or greater, and in a few cases, that is now no longer counting  ponderous AC energy bricks. Airline tray table? Forget it. More like checked baggage.

Nor need to you count on lengthy battery lifestyles from a plus-length pocket book. These machines are designed to run on AC energy maximum of the time.

 If yours can undergo unplugged for greater than 4 hours, don’t forget your self lucky. (Just check the examined runtimes of our favorites in our spec contrast table.)

Razer Blade Pro 17 (2020)

So, are those tradeoffs an excessive amount of to go through simply for a pleasant view? Are luggables simply the massive-print books of the pc world?

No—they may be additionally the overall performance leaders. Their chassis accommodate the maximum effective processors and photographs playing cards, the most powerful cooling systems, the maximum reminiscence, and more than one stable-nation drives (SSDs) or difficult drives for sufficient garage.

 They have masses of room for all of the ports you would possibly want, in addition to spacious, near-computing device-elegance keyboards with complete keypads for numeric facts entry.

Jumbo laptops are not for common fliers, however they fill a huge niche. Let’s have a take a observe what they are able to do, and what to search for as you keep for one.

Work or Play: What Is Your 17-Inch Laptop For?

A few 17-inch laptops are standard-reason PCs for those who need an from time to time transportable machine with a massive display screen. 

Most, however, fall into certainly considered one among  camps with diametrically opposed, however similarly hardcore, audiences: cell workstations, and severe gaming laptops.

Both sorts can cope with what many PC customers think about as work: workplace productiveness and electronic mail the use of Word, Excel, Outlook, Chrome, Slack, and so on. But cell workstations, as visible in our unique manual, snort at such modest apps. Instead, they convey unbiased software program vendor (ISV) certifications of compatibility and easy operation with packages for manner harder computing jobs: computer-aided design (CAD) and superior three-D modeling and rendering, crunching thru massive clinical or engineering datasets, or delving into video modifying and the introduction of worlds for digital reality. And they depend on brand new CPU and GPU energy to do so.

Aorus 17 XE

With the exception that CPU muscle is a touch much less critical even as GPU energy is paramount, a whole lot the identical applies to gaming rigs (additionally the celebs in their personal shopping for manual and roundup of ours that is really well worth sorting out). 

They’re designed to play the cutting-edge and best titles at excessive speeds—as a minimum 60 frames in step with second, double the fee identified as supplying minimally easy gameplay—with all of the visible information and eye sweet grew to become as much as 11. Onscreen stuttering or tearing simply might not reduce it. Lag may be deadly at some point of a fragfest.

Whichever elegance of 17-inch system you’re considering, you are possibly interested in it via way of means of the only huge element the 2 essential sorts have in common: the display screen. Let’s have a take a observe that.

What Kind of Display Is Best in a 17-Inch Laptop?

In the 17-inch elegance, pc and gaming laptops alike advantage from deciding on the proper display screen type. A stable baseline select out might be an in-aircraft switching (IPS) or indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) panel, which offers you the sharpest colorings and contrast, in addition to the widest off-middle viewing angles.

 Touch displays are not very famous in both elegance, with each game enthusiasts and pc professionals who prefer the pixel-via way of means of-pixel manipulate of a mouse.

Alienware x17 R2

Gamers regularly pick shows capped at 1080p decision for excessive body rates’ sake; rapid gaming at 4K decision calls for a costly, one of the best photographs processor (GPU) like Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 2080 Super, GeForce RTX 3070, or GeForce RTX 3080. By contrast, a few pc customers revel in the highest-decision display screen viable to imitate the computing device enjoy of more than one video display units or for modifying 4K video. 

Some cell workstations additionally excel at exactly matching what is visible on display screen for your completed work’s destined output, providing a desire of the web’s sRGB, print’s Adobe RGB, or cinema’s DCI-P3 palettes or colour spaces.

 A few latest fashions from makers inclusive of Asus and Gigabyte additionally include validations via way of means of Pantone for colour accuracy.

Most fashionable pc LCDs have a refresh fee of 60Hz, redrawing the photograph on display screen 60 instances in step with second. That’s excellent for the human eye—tv is 30Hz and maximum films 24Hz—and for 90-plus percentage of programs and customers. 

But it is now no longer sufficient for enthusiast game enthusiasts who have invested in photographs chips which could crank out greater than 60 frames in step with second. 

Hence the supply of gaming laptops with so-referred to as “excessive refresh” 120Hz, 144Hz, 240Hz, or maybe 300Hz and 360Hz shows. (See greater approximately whether or not you really want a excessive-refresh show.) Shoppers on this stratosphere may even discover a few displays that aid Nvidia’s G-Sync technology, capable of synchronize the refresh fee of the show at the fly to the GPU’s output for smoother appearances.

CPU, Memory, and Storage: Which Components to Get in a 17-Inch Laptop?

When it involves CPUs, Intel components teamed with discrete GeForce, RTX A-collection (previously Quadro), or Radeon RX photographs processors lead the recognition contest over AMD’s cell Ryzen five and seven chips with their included photographs.

 The maximum famous alternative for 17-inch gaming notebooks is Intel’s Core i7 H Series, now no longer the lighter-hitting Core i7 U- or G-Series CPUs that display up in thinner, lighter laptops. The potent—and potent costly—Core i9 chips occupy the pinnacle of the marketplace. (Read a whole lot greater on deciding on the proper pc CPU.)

For cell workstations, the Core i7 and Core i9 are joined via way of means of Intel’s Xeon processors, which provide aid for server-fashion blunders correcting code (ECC) reminiscence. 

Though out of doors the mainstream for ISV apps, ECC’s capacity to locate and attach single-bit reminiscence mistakes is a plus for clinical, architectural, or economic computing jobs illiberal of even the slightest facts corruption.

Laptop Interior

Regular, non-ECC RAM will serve simply excellent for maximum buyers, aleven though. An allotment of 8GB of reminiscence is the naked minimal for a gaming pc, with 16GB preferable. (More than that is now no longer surely necessary, except you’ve got got buckets of cash to burn.) Workstations have a heartier urge for food for RAM, with 16GB a realistic minimal and 32GB now no longer uncommon; many fashions aid a whopping 64GB or 128GB. In the case of a pc transportable, you will need to inspect the unique RAM necessities of the programs you propose to run to gauge how a whole lot you need to splurge on reminiscence.

As for garage, search for one or  M.2 stable-nation drives, regularly joined via way of means of one or  2.five-inch difficult drives—the SSD for the working machine and preferred programs, the roomier difficult power for video games and facts. 

Most overall performance-aware portables use barely faster PCI Express (PCIe) instead of SATA stable-nation drives. In reference to PCIe SSDs, you will regularly see the acronym “NVMe” (for Non-Volatile Memory Express) bandied around, in addition to some proprietary monikers, inclusive of HP cell workstations’ Z Turbo Drives. Both suggest the quickest SSDs. (See our manual to the exceptional PCI Express NVMe SSDs.)

Half a terabyte of garage (for an SSD-simplest machine) is the smallest quantity you need to accept; 1TB or 1.5TB is greater mainstream, and a few workstations boast as much as 3TB or 4TB of capacity.

 If cash is a limiter, a smaller SSD (say 256GB or 500GB) because the boot power, paired with a roomy difficult power, is a superb compromise. A 17-inch pc is the type maximum possibly to have room for each. Some 17-inchers can also additionally have an empty bay to can help you set up an o.e.m 2.five-inch power or an M.2 SSD your self. This may be a cheap alternative.

Choosing a GPU: Will Your 17-Inch Laptop Be Good for Gaming, or Pro Work?

Mobile workstations’ photographs playing cards are divided among Nvidia’s RTX A-collection (previously Quadro, and lots greater common) and AMD’s Radeon Pro (a ways much less common) brands. 

Their silicon is optimized for exceptional operations than the companies’ respective GeForce and Radeon components for gaming laptops, in addition to for difficult-charging, constantly-on rendering or calculations.

On the gaming facet of the fence, too, Nvidia enjoys a huge marketplace lead in cell GPUs. Its “Ampere” structure defines its modern-day GeForce RTX 30 Series offerings, visible first in computing device video playing cards just like the GeForce RTX 3080.

 At the better cease of the gaming-pc marketplace, those GPUs, indicated via way of means of “GeForce RTX” alternatively of “GeForce GTX,” are changing chips primarily based totally at the “Turing” structure of Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 20 collection, aleven though you will nonetheless see a few laptops primarily based totally on those for sale.

The primary tale for each workstations and gaming rigs is a acquainted one, aleven though: Higher version numbers and better costs deliver you greater pace and better body rates. 

They additionally benefit you aid for functions inclusive of digital reality (VR), aleven though midrange and excessive-cease gaming-pc GPUs just like the GeForce RTX 1660 Ti (Turing) and above, and all the modern-day GeForce RTX chips, aid gambling and exploring VR worlds, even as excessive-cease cell-pc components just like the Nvidia RTX A collection aid VR authoring or growing them.

LG Gram 17 (2022)

Nvidia’s gaming-pc GPUs in 2021 noticed a shift. Before the release of the 30-Series Ampere and 20-Series Turing pc chips, it changed into a easy ladder: 

They climbed from the GeForce GTX 1050 to the GTX 1050 Ti, then the GTX 1060, with the previously excessive-cease GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 topping the line. 

The closing 3 had been changed via way of means of the GeForce RTX 2060, RTX 2070, and RTX 2080 (and barely faster “RTX Super” variations of the closing ), that have themselves given manner to the RTX 3050, RTX 3050 Ti, RTX 3060, RTX 3070, and pinnacle-cease RTX 3080 and RTX 3080 Ti. 

Only the closing  will actually fulfill gaming hounds making plans to play the cutting-edge titles at 4K decision with all of the photograph-high-satisfactory settings dialed up, even as the GTX chips and decrease RTX chips were designed for game enthusiasts with complete HD (1,920-via way of means of-1,080-pixel) displays. 

The RTX 2070, RTX 3060, and RTX 3070, meanwhile, straddle the complete-HD and 4K realms.

Asus ROG Strix Scar 17

At the decrease cease, the modern-day chips are the cell variations of the GeForce GTX 1650, GTX 1650 Ti, and GTX 1660 Ti. (There isn’t anyt any cell model of the GTX 1660.) Machines with the GeForce RTX 3050 and RTX 3050 Ti began out hitting the streets in early 2022; those are the primary low-cease RTX-elegance GPUs. All of those GPUs have supplanted the GTX 1050, GTX 1050 Ti, and GTX 1060. 

You’re searching at an updated decrease-cease pc if it has any such GTX 1600-collection chips or an RTX 3050-elegance one.

Traditionally, a completely few massive, heavyweight gaming laptops carried now no longer one however  GeForce GPUs for ludicrous pace, the use of Nvidia’s SLI (and withinside the cutting-edge generation, NVLink) multi-GPU technology. 

But they price a fortune, their battery lifestyles changed into continuously brutish and short, and now no longer all video games advantage from dual-GPU setups, anyway. They at the moment are an anachronism, and in case you see one, it is a signal of antique tech. 

AMD’s Radeon RX cell GPUs have made a few modest inroads of past due in some machines, however they have a tendency to seem up to now in 15-inch-elegance machines, now no longer 17-inchers. Nvidia dominates pc GPUs.

So, What Is the Best 17-Inch Laptop to Buy for Your Needs?

That’s approximately it for standard advice, besides for subjects of private preference. Keyboards, for instance: Some gaming laptops pass wild with colorful, customizable RGB backlighting and characteristic macro keys for storing often used command or fight 

sequences, even as a few cell workstations’ touchpads or pointing sticks characteristic the third (middle) mouse button regularly utilized in CAD and comparable programs. 

And we do not assume you should purchase a 17-inch pc in both of those agencies that does not have as a minimum one Thunderbolt three or Thunderbolt four port, which mixes USB-C and DisplayPort capability with daisy-chainable aid for outside docking and garage solutions.

Dell XPS 17 (2022)

At any fee, you are prepared to buy the pocket book of your huge-display screen dreams. 

Get began out via way of means of sorting out the opinions we have got assembled here, and precise luck: Flex the ones biceps and get your back-strengthening ordinary down pat. You’re going to move huge. On the turn facet, your eyes can be very, very happy.