Lightest laptops with big 15-inch screens

With display sizes of 15 or 15.6 inches, these ultraportable laptops give you more room to work and make viewing the web, movies and games that much more enjoyable. 

But, with weights ranging from 2.4 to 4.4 pounds (1.1 to 2 kg), you can take them with you on a daily commute or around campus without sore shoulders or a strained back. And just because they're thin and light doesn't mean they're underpowered. 

At 2.4 pounds (1.1 kg), the Gram is the lightest 15.6-inch laptop you'll find at the moment. It also happens to have great battery life, lasting 9 hours and 42 minutes on our streaming video test. 

The Gram does feel a bit flimsy, but its magnesium alloy body should stand up to some abuse. It's available with a touchscreen and Core i7 processor for $1,500 (about £1,185, AU$1,990) or with a Core i5 and a non-touch full-HD display for $1,200 (about £920, AU$1,510).

The Notebook 9's 15-inch display is slightly smaller than the Gram's, but it improves on the LG in almost every other way. It also weighs only ounces more at 2.6 pounds or 1.2 kg. Its battery life is stellar, too, at more than 12 hours -- one of the longest we've tested. 

The Notebook 9 starts at $1,250 (roughly £960, AU$1,575), but if you're willing to pay $1,400 (roughly £1,075 or AU$1,765), you can get it with an Nvidia GeForce 940MX graphics card to assist with photo editing or for some gaming with the settings dialed back. 

At 3.6 pounds (1.6 kg), the VivoBook is noticeably heavier than the LG or Samsung. However, it also starts at $800 (about £600 or AU$1,000) and features the same dual-core 2.7GHz Intel Core i7-7500U processor found in those models. 

Asus also ups the storage by including two drives: A solid-state drive for fast boot times and application performance, and a slower, but significantly larger hard drive for storage. There is a Windows 10 Signature Edition that upgrades the integrated graphics to a discrete Nvidia 940MX GPU. 

The biggest disappointment is its battery, which hit only 7 hours and 7 minutes on our video streaming test. 

The Notebook 9 Pro weighs the same as the VivoBook at 3.6 pounds (1.6 kg), but does considerably more. It's a 2-in-1 for starters, with 360-degree hinges so you can flip its 1,920x1,080-resolution touchscreen into multiple positions. 

It's also Samsung's first notebook to include a built-in S Pen with 4,000 pressures levels to write and draw on the screen. Samsung even put in an AMD Radeon 540 graphics card in it that's good enough for a little low-setting gaming and image work. 

The top of Apple's lineup and the king of high-end laptops, the 15.4-inch model weighs only 4 pounds (1.8 kg), but is the most powerful system in this roundup. It's the most expensive, too, starting at $2,400 (£2,350 or AU$3,500).

Apple's newest MacBook Pro has some headaches with it only using USB-C ports along with a superflat keyboard that requires some adjustment, but its excellent Retina-resolution display, bigger touchpad and even the second-screen Touch Bar keep things interesting. Plus, its battery life is long at 10 hours and 43 minutes. 

When we reviewed the 15.6-inch Spectre x360, we may have complained that this premium 2-in-1 wasn't particularly lightweight. (What can I say? We're spoiled.) 

Weighing in at 4.4 pounds (2 kg), it's about as heavy as the Dell XPS 15, but can be used as a pen-enabled tablet just as easily as a laptop. For $1,500 (£1,500 or roughly converting to AU$1,670), it's an all-around good performer, too, with nearly 10 hours of battery life in our tests. Plus, it just looks really nice. 

The XPS 15 can match the weight and performance of the MacBook Pro, but, you know, it runs Windows 10. Featuring 7th-gen Core i3, i5 or i7 processors, this laptop's entry model sports a dual-core i3, a 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution display and integrated graphics for $999 and weighs 4 pounds (1.8 kg). The starter model in the UK begins at £1,399, while the one for Australia begins at AU$2,499. 

If you don't mind an extra half pound (and about $800 more), you can get it with an accurate 4K-resolution touchscreen with hardware calibration support, 100 percent Adobe RGB and most of the DCI-P3 coverage and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 graphics card to push those pixels around. A similarly equipped model also runs for £1,849 and AU$2,699.

If you want a laptop that's small and light, check out the best ultraportable laptops of  2017.