Very Impressive

I'm not a gamer so this review may not be helpful to those who want a computer to play games.



I have worked as a professional software developer/architect for 17 years. I started with MSDOS 2.0 and have ridden the Microsoft wave all the way through Vista 64 and I had a few years with UNIX. I have personally owned or worked with computers from Dell HP Compaq IBM. I have heard of Apple products but for the most part dismissed them as more toy than tool. (I was not alone in this perspective.) I like Microsoft but after working with it for the better part of 20 year I decided to look at something different.



I never thought I would purchase an Apple yet here it is. I am impressed to say the least and I see Apple as a serious tool that also makes a cool toy.



Pros:

Lightweight - Probably the lightest laptop I've ever worked with or owned



Solid - Normally when you get laptops at 15.4 or larger chassis flex becomes evident as you can see them bend and they creak. Yet because of its single piece construction and light weight aluminum the MacBook feels good when you need to move it. I doesn't creak and there is no noticeable bend when lifted.



Battery Life - It just keeps going and going and going... Actually I am seeing up to 4 hours life on the fully charged battery. My previous computer never surpassed 1.75 hours.



Size - It is very thin and carrying it around is very comfortable. I had a 17" and while I like the large display its uncomfortable to carry like a book.



Magnetic Clasp - When closing the lid the owner is rewarded with a very solid thump instead of a "creak" "clack" that you hear from so many other laptops that use a plastic display and mechanical clasp. Opening the monitor is equally a pleasing. You place you thumb under the lip and lift. The laptop may slide a little on smooth surfaces but the lid comes up smooth and controlled.



Keyboard - This is a great piece of work. Does it have "Home" "Page Up" "Page Down" the legendary "Any" key? No. Doesn't need it. A little research and practice and you will find that these "missing" keys are functions of the keyboard and I don't miss them at all. Secondly the keyboard "key-float" (that rattle you hear when you lightly stroke your finger back and forth over a laptop keyboard) is almost completely non-existent. So when you're typing it doesn't sound like your wadding up crinkly plastic and you don't annoy your neighbors. The key throw is short but very pleasant. Another thing I like about the keyboard is that you don't feel like you will break the keyboard if your touch is a little heavy.



Display - The display is a work of art. No only does it look good but flex has been reduced to almost nothing. It feels very solid and you don't feel you need to worry about tilting the screen from the corner. The glass cover over the LED lit LCD display is awesome. You can actually clean the screen without LCD screen colors distorting. Not to mention that is automatically dims in low light and the key board lights up in the same low light conditions. that's a nice touch. The display brightness is every bit as bright as my desktop LCD display in strong light.



Touch Pad - Any who has tried to use the touch pads on other computers (I hate them generally) will love this touch pad. It works like the iPhone (except scrolling is reversed for obvious reasons - you're not actually touching the screen). The touch is light and very smooth. Making the entire touch pad the button is brilliant it took me almost no time to get use to it and now I nearly push a hole through the Dell touch pad before I realize I have to click the buttons. I have no trouble with inadvertent touch that moves my cursor away from where I'm typing.



Quiet - I have yet to hear the fans. It makes me wonder if they ever work.



DVD Superdrive - Finally! No cup holder comes sliding out of the side of my laptop. Just simply slide the disc in and your done. It operates like the CD player in a car. It is easy to eject from the screen or a key on the keyboard.



Fit and Finish - The best I've ever seen. The only thing I've seen is a very slight misalignment of the Express Card/34 slot door. But you really have to look close to see it.



Operating System - WOW. Fast no anti-virus stable: it just works. I won't get too much into the OS but I will say that once I understood how Apple likes things done OS X is very appealing. Not to mention that it sleeps and wakes up faster than anything I have ever worked with. Open the monitor and it's sitting there saying "come on I'm tired of waiting for you".



Built-in Accelerometers - Not sure what they're good for but they're cool. Like the iPhone the MacBook Pro has three accelerometers. There is an Stanford Laptop Orchestra uses MacBook Pros to make music using these accelerometers.



No Fresh Air Openings - I really dislike fresh air ports on the bottom of laptops. They are easily plugged and they suck fuzz and dust into the heat sinks. With my previous computers the fresh air ports were placed underneath the computer right where it sets on your legs. The result was you ran a big risk overheating the computer. The MacBook Pro pulls the cooling air through the keyboard and therefore has a smooth bottom making it far better to place on you lap.



CONS:

Chassis - While it is a brilliant piece of engineering there are a couple very minor issues.



One: Always pick the computer up with both hands. While this is true of all laptops you want to last it's a little more important with this one. The metal around the ethernet port has been machined very thin which was necessary to fit the large jack in the rather narrow side of the laptop. So if you have the monitor open and grab the laptop with you left hand and your thumb over that jack you could dent the metal around it. It doesn't warp or twist the whole chassis it's too strong but you could see a small indention in a otherwise straight piece of metal.



Two: The metal in the Battery/Hard Drive Cover is very thin and sometime appears to hang below lip of the chassis. You really have to look to see it and it isn't all the time. I don't think is is warped or bent but just the natural flexibility of aluminum.



Touch Pad Click - While I absolutely love the touch pad (in fact I only use a mouse anymore when I am programming on it because of the nature of the software). If you try to click at the top of the pad (nearest the screen) the force required to click goes up quite a bit.



Price? - Not really a Con. Some have complained about the price. Three and half years ago I paid $5700 for a Dell 9100 laptop (All the bells and whistles Window XP Pro Office Pro the works). It has been a great computer that has been put to pasture and my family uses it. I've only had two problems with it. The dreaded mexican jumping keys (a key flies off the keyboard after you press it down while typing; AKA broken key) Dell replaced the keyboard without any trouble and the hard drive crashed and needed to be replaced. The Dell computer when new cost more than twice the MacBook Pro does today and the only thing it has over the Mac (old age and technology not withstanding) is it's 1920 x 1200 pixel display compared to the Mac's 1440 x 900 display. If I were to order the most power 15.4 laptop Apple sells today I would still pay half the price of the Dell and the Apple does much more and has better quality overall.



To summarize this is an accomplishment that the engineers designers and developers should feel proud. There is some room for improvement but these improvements are at a level that other laptops have to improve a great deal just to achieve Apple's shortcomings.



I could go on further but I think this is enough. Apple has truly developed a great product in both hardware and software and I recommend it highly.More detail ...

Full Review of the New MacBook... by a former Windows PC User

My review... take it for what it is... mine. (I provide my story so that you can see why I purchased this computer. If you don't care don't read the review).



To me Mac always seemed like it would take a leap of faith. Having had very little interaction with Macs and even less knowledge about them I was set to be a Windows boy for life. However recently I found out that I will be going on a ship that is gone all of the time (I'm in the Navy). Needing to have my kids see me reading books to them and me needing to see my kids I planned on leaving my current laptop with my wife and getting a new one for me (she doesn't care about electronics). This way we could create DVDs and send them to each other for our kids and myself. I went into a store looking to spend not too much and was attracted by the HP entertainment laptops. However... when looking at a $[...] laptop I knew I would have to add an anti-virus ($[...]-$[...]) and a movie making program ($[...]-$[...]). The guy at the store told me that for what I was looking at in price I should check out the Macs.



Low and behold... there were the Macs. Each sitting there looking different and pricey. I was then told about iLife and how I would be able to use iMovie to make my movies iChat to chat with my family on webcam iPhoto to import and fix up pictures and other stuff. WoW! My previous experience with the Windows based programs of this nature was that you'd be better off buying these types of software than using what was included by the computer. However the sales guy who was not on commission swore by them. Also Macs don't need anti-virus software to boot! I was sold when he told me the difference in the customer satisfaction index when comparing Macs and all of the other computer makers.



I took the plunge.



As you can see from my stars... I'm glad I did. I will NEVER go back to a windows based PC. EVER. While this computer has a few cons which I will list later it is much better than what you can get for the same price as far as a PC. Here is what I liked:



The Exterior:



This computer is small. Its compact it feels really sturdy and its stylish. There is an apple on the back that lights up from the light of the LCD screen pretty neat. Also the keys have just the right punch for those of us that know how to type. The F keys also double for the bright level of the screen the feature expose (which is outstanding!) and movie stop go vol etc. There is an eject button next to the F12 which works well with this type of drive.



The Interior: iLife is a great program. All of the stuff that comes with it will ensure that unless you need something very very professional you won't have to buy any software. Home videos are awesome with this thing. I can't really compare Leopard to the previous operating systems... since this is my first mac... but I can tell you that it kicks vista's butt. An example; I wanted to hook up my printer which has only been used on Windows PCs before and I plugged it in. That's it. I plugged it in and it worked. No drivers no software nothing. As soon as I plugged it in and click to make it my default printer it was printing. HOLY COW! THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN MISSING! Since I've started using my Mac I have had ZERO "trying to find a solution to the problem" pop ups ZERO "this program has stopped working" ZERO freezes ZERO compatibility issues with current hardware (external drive of music and wireless network) and ZERO defects found.



Now the cons:



1) 120 GB hard drive... Yes its easy to hook up the "time machine" or to keep all of your photos or movies on an external hard drive but for a company that has a 120 GB MP3 player that's just over $[...]... come on!



2) The mouse pad doesn't let you double click for actions to occur. You have to push the button. As a lifetime Windows user this took some getting used to. However... you can scroll up and down easily by using two fingers. I've enjoyed this so much that I'm going to call it a draw :)



3) No multimedia slot for media card etc. Apple! What are you doing?!?! Its a simple thing to install and it make it much easier for me so that I don't have to always remember where that stupid USB cord that hooks my camera to my computer is. I'd much rather take the card out and insert it.



That's all of my cons.



Once again... I LOVE THIS MAC. On the 2 GB of RAM that it has it works just as well as a windows PC with 4 or more GB. That's because the OS is designed better and the processes don't bog it down. The processor is fast enough to where this seems faster than my wifes 2.4 gHZ laptop (of course that is in conjunction with other aspects of the computer). The colors are great and the system is great. You WILL have the "Mac Learning Curve" as I was told... it takes about 4-5 hours to get used to and 10-15 to really get to know but its worth it. Plus Apple puts videos on each function so that when you open it it explains how to use it.



I took the leap of faith and now I'm a believer. So long windows!!! Never again! Spend the extra [...]-[...] bucks... you'll save it anyway by not having to get the anti-virus and having all the stuff you need on it. Oh and go to [...] after you get your Mac. Its a non-profit site that I've started using to help me learn the system and it's great.



FIVE STARS!



***UPDATE***



Still using this MacBook and still loving it. I've gotten really good with what it has to offer and am still amazed at how easy it is to use compared to Windows based PCs. The iLife 09 software (incl) has proven itself very useful and works well with other software. An example Photoshop works well with iPhoto. I haven't run into any wall and still recommend it with 5 stars.More detail ...

Real improvement

Coming from a troubled Nvidia 8600M GT MacBook Pro - let me say that I was very skeptical buying another Apple Laptop with nVidia chip in it.



However one weekend I decided to visit the nearest Apple Retail Store and check out the newly released models. My decision was mostly influenced by the reduced prices and increased battery life.



After some debating over buying the older model for same price or getting the latest one we settled on the newest mid end $1999 model with 2 GPUs. As is common I got a very nice resale price for my older MacBook Pro as it had AppleCare.



This generation is an all around improvement over the past generation unless you happen to be using ExpressCard on 15" model that is. In our case we never used the ExpressCard after attempting to use a eSATA card that did not work really well. And we have a few SD Cards that we figure we can easily use.



So on to the specific improvements over its predecessor -

1) Battery Life - I was very doubtful that the battery would last any longer than 4 hours at the maximum but was pleasantly surprised to find that for surfing/email type and the occasional CNN/Youtube flash videos getting 6+ hours was quite easy.



2) Prices - No doubt prices are the most reasonable Apple laptops have ever had. If you have no need for the dual GPU you can get the $1699 model which comes with a respectable 2.53Ghz Processor 4GB RAM and a very capable 9400M GPU.



3) Operating Temperature - I have owned my share of laptops (Apple and non-Apple) and I have to say this one is the coolest - it never gets too warm and I can use it on my lap all the times - even encoding videos using the HandBrake application did not make it uncomfortably hot. However if I switch it to use the 9600M GPU it gets warmer even on regular use. It also runs very quiet - the fans may be coming on but I never notice.



Initially there was a lot of furor over Apple's downgrade of the Serial-ATA interface speed (used to transfer data to and from the hard disk) to 1.5Gbps but Apple quickly restored the speeds to 3Gbps - I do not however notice any difference with the 5400RPM hard disk.



About the display - it is gorgeous and colors are vibrant. I had the opportunity to use a calibrated color profile to make it look even better. However I find the display to be a little too much reflective but I am coming from almost always using matte display so I figure it's a matter of getting used to it.



Apple's use of Mini DisplayPort is ahead of its time - not many displays support it and so I had to buy a $30 DVI adapter - not a big problem but Apple should at the very least re-start bundling the adapter with the Pro machines. Also another USB port in lieu of the SD Card Reader would be quite welcome - people can use the SD Card Reader for only SD Cards but a USB port can be used for SD Cards as well as other peripherals.



That said this generation is overall a very nice improvement - the great battery life itself is enough to convince one to upgrade.



[ Edited to add some findings after extensive use ]



After using it for a few months I find a handful of things moderately annoying about this laptop -



1) The positioning of USB ports - both USB ports are on one side of the laptop and they are far too closely positioned to use both at once. For example I found I could not attach my Sandisk USB thumb drive and anything else at a time. And I don't have any irregular/unusual devices. They should really go back to having the ports on two sides or at least position them a bit more apart.



2) The Lid of the laptop is loose - this was known to me before but I never thought it would become annoying. I don't routinely use the laptop in bed but whenever I do it's annoying.



3) The amount of RAM Apple advertises (4GB) is not actually entirely usable - only 3.75GB is. So you lose 256Mb of RAM for the dual GPU.More detail ...

Very nice but not perfect

I'm a PC but I'm also a Mac. A Macbook Air (MBA) to be exact. I'm very much into design so it just made sense. I first considered something like the Dell Adamo Latitude Z or the HP ENVY13 But the Dells were heavily under-powered processor-wise. The HP was crazy powerful but heftier than I would have liked. The Latitude's Euro design gave the MBA's design a run for it money but it starts at over two grand and you'll easily knock on $2500 with the bells and whistles Yikes! The HP ENVY 13 is very powerful and the only ultra-portable with the i7 processor. But for what I'll be using this for the mobility and price is more important to me. The Adamo seemed to match the price and features of the Macbook Air best but finding that the design feature and price pretty much a draw (I personally thought the MBA had a very small edge on Design) I settled on the MBA because of the fact that I can run Windows 7 as well as Mac OS X(which I also use for different purposes)and the better build quality. I have to say the unibody design really makes the thing feel as if it was carved from one piece of aluminum. There's minimal flex to speak of. Closed it just feels so nice in your hands.



The 1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor is a lot better than the 1.2 and 1.4 that are available in the Dells; more than enough for my usage. This might have been a bit meek had I not already had an Intel Core 2 Quad Desktop computer at home. This also made HP ENVY pointless.



The screen is more than adequate and much better than a netbook. Since it's so light it really can go anywhere a netbook can. The nice Keyboard and trackpad was also refreshing.



The Solid State Drive is also nice but after some usage I really don't find them all that different from a standard HD perhaps a bit faster but not that noticeable. It certainly is cooler and less noisy. Some users have complained about it getting a bit warm but I'm thinking they've got an HD instead of an SSD.



And now for the few CONs:



No optical drive - since I won't be needing this too often it's not a big deal. I already have an external Blu-Ray Drive that I used to install everything. Once that was done I can only image using it for an occasion Blu-Ray/DVD movie but even this will be rare unless I'm in a hotel room somewhere and bore out of my mind.



Connectivity:

No Ethernet big deal! It's all about wireless!



Weird Mini Display port - also not a big deal since I don't imaging connecting an external monitor to this much.



Only one USB - This one I admit is pretty significant. It was a bit of hassle to swap USB devices a bit but again I only use multiple devices a handful of times (mainly a USB DJ Console Mixer and an external USB HD containing the music I want to mix). I got a little griffin USB "Splitter" which was nothing more than a very tiny USB Hub but it did have some trouble getting enough power to the HD from this one USB port so I did have to add a USB power cable to the mix (the audio was clipping heavily during mixing and transition). So keep that in mind if you're planning to daisy-chain three hard drives a soda cooler and a reading light to the USB port- just don't. It works fine with the majority of other (low powered) USB devices.

RAM - Here's the other big CON! While 2GB of RAM will probably be ok for now but I would have loved having the option of adding more. I have 8GB on my desktop and I actually use it (photo and video editing media center functions terminal services etc.)! While I'm not doing much of that (maybe a little Photoshoping) on this thing all it takes is that killer application that requires at least 4GB of RAM that I can't use that will drive me nuts!



I have a first generation Macbook Pro from work and I always loved the design of it. This takes things to the next level. I'm primarily a Windows user and this seems to work a bit more seamlessly with Windows than the Macbook Pro(although with the latest drivers and software updates for bootcamp from apple it got better). It's kinda odd that I went with an Mac to run Windows but it was a calculated choice. Had I been looking for a full-function laptop it would have likely been an HP or Dell.More detail ...

Macbook Pro 17-inch (Mid 2009)...fantastic desktop replacement

Simply put the best laptop I've ever owned. I configured it through Apple with the 128GB SSD and apps install incredibly fast and launch instantly. The screen is a marvel 1920 X 1200 with LCD backlight. I opted to go with the glossy so there are some reflections but only when using directly in front of a bright window otherwise its not a problem (for me anyway).



Bear in mind this is a BIG laptop...its a tray table...but very sturdy and NO flex in the chassis. The trackpad is also very useable although I still opted for a mouse (Logitech M555b Bluetooth highly recommended also).



It doesn't heat up much and has incredible battery life...if I switch to the 9400M integrated graphics (which is fine for most uses) I can get 6 hours on a charge no problem with WiFi Bluetooth brightness at about 60% and the SSD as the primary HD. With a different config YMMV but I'd bet 5-6 hours is the norm for this machine.



All-in-all a great laptop. I'll have this 2-3 years no problems.More detail ...