Best 17 inch laptop for the money

Not all laptops are sleek portable machines designed for use on the go. Some, like the best 17-inch laptops are true desktop replacements, with all of the screen space, performance and connectivity of a device that really does feel like a full PC—except you can lug it around with you.

Modern 17-inch laptops aren't like the absolute monsters of the past either. They might still have big screens and big power under the hood, but they're much lighter too. And battery life can last for hours and hours, especially in models without a dedicated GPU, making sure that whether you're looking to work or play, you'll be able to do it without constantly pecking around for a power socket. Here are the best 17-inch laptops you can buy today within a range of differing prices.

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One of the few decent sub-$500 Windows laptops, the Asus VivoBook gives you so much laptop for its price. Along with its big 1080p IPS display, it enjoys a capable (if entry-level) dual-core AMD Ryzen 3 3250U CPU with onboard Vega graphics which gives you just about enough power for older esports games like League of Legends and DotA 2.

More realistically, though, this laptop lets you watch Netflix at 1080p on a decent size screen while offering USB-C connectivity and a microSD card slot. Its battery life isn't great and the keyboard is a bit mushy, but if you only have $500 to buy a laptop and simply have to have a big one, the Asus VivoBook is one of the best 17-inch laptops.

Brand new for 2021, the latest Aspire 3 continues to be a great value pick at 17 inches, packing 8GB of RAM and a 256GB NVMe SSD alongside its Intel Pentium Silver CPU. That's a true quad core too; a rarity at this price point.

It only offers USB-A connectors for external devices, but it does manage to fit a Gigabit Ethernet port in the relatively trim chassis, making it one of the few modern laptops to do so at all, let alone at this price. It also supports Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 for some additional wireless connection options. Battery life is said to run as long as 7.5 hours if you're careful with the screen brightness, though expect less in real world use.

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This laptop might stretch a $500 budget, but it also pushes up the specs in notable ways, offering much greater performance potential that future proofs it against any more intense tasks you might throw at it in the years to come. It packs an AMD Ryzen 3500 quad-core CPU (with support for eight simultaneous threads) with 12GB of RAM, and a 256GB NVMe SSD. It even comes with a DVD-Writer — great for those who still need access to physical media in their laptop. The screen isn't quite 1080p, hitting just 1,600x900 for resolution, but it is touch responsive, and the onboard graphics are powerful enough that you can easily play older Esports games at decent frame rates.

Best 17-inch Laptops Under $1,000

Dell Inspiron 17 3000

It's not sleek, it's not sexy, but the Dell Inspiron 17 3000 is a capable laptop with a big screen that would be perfectly suited to handling spreadsheets, Word documents, and PDFs in the day, and doing a little big-screen binging in the evening.

The 17-inch display is full 1080p and has reasonable color accuracy and saturation, and it even gets quite bright considering it's not targeted at gamers or heavy media consumers. That doesn't mean it can't do those, though. The Intel Core i7 1065G7 is one of the better Intel Ice Lake processors, featuring some not-incapable 11th-generation Iris Plus graphics for basic Esports and indie gaming if you want.

The keyboard is quiet to type on, and the touchpad is relatively responsive. There are no USB-C ports, but it does have plenty of USB-A and a DVD drive for access to legacy media.

Acer Aspire 5 17

Despite its affordable price tag, the Acer Aspire has a surprising array of modern laptop features and doesn't cut too many corners to maintain them in such a big-screen machine. It comes with USB-C and Gigabit Ethernet, plenty of USB-A ports, half a terabyte of high-speed NVMe storage and Wi-Fi 6 connectivity.

Its 17.3-inch screen isn't particularly bright or high contrast, but its colors are handled well enough, and the 1080p resolution makes it a decent option for watching movies or TV shows in your downtime. The Core i5 1135G7 isn't powerful enough to play games outside of older Esports titles, but that also helps this laptop sip power, so expect a good 6-8 hours per charge.

Asus TUF Gaming F17

Good gaming laptops are hard to find under $1,000, especially if you want a big display. But it can be done. The best 17-inch gaming laptop under $1,000 is easily the ASUS TUF F17, which packs an older Core i5-10300H CPU alongside a decent like Nvidia GTX 1650 Ti graphics chip for impressive gaming power at 1080p resolution. With support for high refresh rates too, it'll even make those older games that look best on such hardware run buttery smooth—great for competitive games where every little edge counts.

It also packs 512GB of fast NVMe storage, 8GB of RAM (upgradeable down the line if you need more) and the option of adding an additional 2.5-inch SSD. Other pleasantries include USB-A and USB-C connections, a Gigabit Ethernet port and a headphone jack.

Best 17-inch Laptops Under $2,000

HP Omen 17

With graphics shortages hitting every segment of the PC and laptop market, it's hard to find real gaming power without spending a lot. The HP Omen 17 is an exception that delivers on every front, with a capable CPU and GPU combo (10th generation Intel i7 paired with an RTX 2060) that makes it an excellent gaming machine and a powerful all-round laptop no matter what else you want to use it for.

The big 1080p screen looks great and supports refresh rates up to 144Hz for smooth mouse pointers and in-game animations. It's not light at over seven pounds, and its battery won't last more than a few hours if you're doing anything more intensive than staring at the desktop, but it's a powerful laptop with great build quality at a reasonable price, making it one of the best 17-inch laptops you can buy today.

LG Gram 17

Amazon

As sleek and sexy as a modern 17-inch laptop can get, the LG Gram comes with a fantastically detailed and colorful 1440p display, a powerful array of internal components, and a precise and comfortable keyboard. And it packs it all inside a chassis that weighs less than three pounds.

There's no dedicated GPU, so it's not much for gaming outside of older Esports games, but the Core i5-1165G7 CPU is a six-core powerhouse, giving you all the performance you need for basic office and more intensive tasks, like light video editing. Despite that, this Intel Evo certified design has some of the best battery life of any laptop out there, offering up to 20 hours in the right circumstances. If you're not looking to play games, this could be the best 17-inch laptop money can buy.

Acer Predator Helios

Walmart.com

The Predator Helios 300 from Acer isn't just a powerful 17-inch laptop, it's one of the most unique options out there. Its chassis is entirely metal and that makes it a little chunky, but it’s incredibly sturdy and able to withstand the kinds of knocks and bangs that would incapacitate lesser laptops. The pairing of an Intel Core i7 10750H processor with an Nvidia RTX 2060 gives this all the gaming power you need to take full advantage of its gorgeous 1080p 144Hz display, and the 1.5TB of storage gives you plenty of space for an expansive gaming library.

Best 17-inch Premium Laptops ($2,000+)

Alienware m17 R4

Dell

Aiming to reinforce its claim as de facto maker of ridiculously specced computers, Alienware’s m17 R4 can be kitted to blow you away with the best visuals in almost any game you can imagine. It does so thanks to an Intel Core i9-10980HK and a full desktop-grade NVIDIA RTX 3080, the latest and most powerful available in this form factor.

All of that power absolutely murders battery life while gaming on the go, and that goes doubly if you’re running everything at the 360Hz max refresh rate this gorgeous 1080p panel supports. But if this is going to be your main computer while home with the option to tote it for road adventures—the way these desktop replacements are meant to be used—then you shouldn’t mind tethering to a wall outlet to keep your sessions going.

Beyond sheer power, this is also one of the only laptops you’re going to find with an actual mechanical keyboard baked in, which oddly enough applies to all but the function row. It’s a Cherry MX board that doesn’t leave you wanting for travel, feedback or accuracy, which is something that can become an issue in time with other keyboards as the gunk and dirt cake up under the keys. Add Alienware’s signature out-of-this-galaxy look, and no one will ever misjudge your ability to run Crysis again. Read more in our full Alienware M17 R4 review.

Arguably the most powerful gaming laptop available today, the Asus ROG Strix Scar combines the best laptop gaming processor ever made—the AMD Ryzen 5900HX — with the best mobile GPU ever released—the Nvidia RTX 3080 mobile. That's a compelling combination in a massive 17.3-inch laptop, because it gives you all the power and screen space for the most cutting edge of laptop gaming experiences.

It's not 4K—that's still kind of wasted, even at 17.3-inches—but it is 1440p, and with support for refresh rates up to 165Hz, you'll make every game you play look smooth as butter. It also has reasonable battery life (for such a monstrous hardware configuration anyway) and the keyboard and touchpad are excellent.

The only downside is the price. This is already an expensive laptop, but due to a shortage of high-end laptops, you have to pay a scalpers price. Only pay it if you need the best 17-inch laptop now and can't afford to wait. If you can want to save a little and are happy with last-gen performance, the 2020 RTX 2070 option is still a great choice.

The smaller Razer Blade Advanced models are arguably the best gaming laptops around. The 17-inch cranks things up to 11, and though the price tag and lower battery life make it a little harder to recommend, it's still an amazing laptop and easily one of the best 17-inch laptops you can buy.

With an Intel Core i7-10875H CPU, an Nvidia RTX 3080 mobile GPU, and 32GB of high-speed memory, it's an absolute beast, easily able to handle any game you can throw at it at 4K. The laptop itself is also gorgeously designed, with a well built chassis, smooth edges, and a near bezel-less display that helps immerse you in your games and movies like little else at this screen size.

This hardware array also makes the Blade an awesome laptop for creative work too. Its display is gorgeous, bright and detailed, and the hardware is just perfect for video or photo editing without compromise.

Not all laptops are designed for play. The Thinkpad range of laptops is iconic for its business-centric performance and build quality, and the latest-generation Thinkpad 17 is no exception. It doesn't quite have the cutting edge hardware of its consumer-facing contemporaries, but it still packs a powerful eight-core processor alongside 32GB of fast memory, plus a terabyte of NVMe SSD storage.

The Quadro T2000 enterprise GPU is all the power you need for 3D work and video transcoding, and the 1080p display is bright and colorful enough for most tasks, whether you're working through documents, 3D design programs or photo editing. The ThinkPad is also super strong, tested in extreme temperatures and conditions that other laptops wouldn't stand up to, and the built-in fingerprint reader helps keep all your data safe no matter where you go.

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