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.
The most amazing experience with the new Mac was the transfer of my "stuff" from old to new Mac. I went at it with some trepidation because it had taken seemingly endless hours to migrate "stuff" from old to new PCs. By contrast, everything had migrated from old Mac to new Mac in less than one hour via firewire and all worked perfectly. By 'everything" I mean not just all data files, records, contact information, photos, calendar, etc.but also all software I had installed on the old Mac. And, everything was exactly where and how I was used to it, and everything worked as it should on my brilliant and larger new Mac. It is now backed up by even greater memory and processor speed, and runs on Snow Leopard which is just as flawlessly reliable as the previous operating system but faster and more efficient, with a few neat new features strewn in.
I can still hardly believe that it took years, no decades, before I got fed up and dumped PCs and their flawed operating systems and incompatible software and data bases for something that works. A student in my family just "took the plunge" to Mac when she inherited my first Mac she is thrilled. Before that I had loaned it to friends decades long PC users who promptly made me a nice offer for it and who have since bought new Macs from the local Apple Store. They are extremely conservative and frugal folks but it did not take them long to figure out that one Mac every decade that always works is better than a new PC every three years that frequently "crashes". Macs serve their owners and serve them well. PCs work sometimes and expect their owners to serve and service them.. Who is master and who slave? There is never a doubt with a Mac!
Buy Apple MacBook Pro MC226LL/A 17-Inch Laptop Now
One year ago, disgusted by dismal experiences with multiple PC manufacturers (Dell, Acer, among others) in terms of their terrible support for Windows (along with poor hardware reliability issues and very poor servicing of hardware), I took the plunge and decided I would buy a Mac. I basically have to have windows XP because it's required to interface with various hospital systems, but I thought if the Windows partition went down (a virtual guarantee with Windows XP at some point), at least I would have a reliable Mac system as a backup. I expected a far better experience, given the customer service ratings of Apple, which are far better than any PC manufacturer. Little did I know what I was getting into.The XP partition blue screened on a regular basis, from the first moment it was created. Microsoft of course makes it anything but easy to figure out why XP is bluescreening part of their effort to duck and cover around the OS being a buggy mess. (Any misbehaving driver will bring it down.) And Apple's position on this consistently was that "this is not their problem." Adding insult to injury, I was charged for support by Microshaft (despite this partition being built from a new copy of Windows XP professional). Well, what else is new this is standard PC fare, and the primary reason why so many people are switching to Macs.
What was a revelation was to discover (after using a great little program called BlueScreenView that not even Microsoft was aware of) that the driver causing ALL the blue screens was Apple's proprietary mouse driver for the touchpad/mouse. Even more stunning, I found out that Apple apparently was aware of this all along (12+ months), but failed to contact users, and failed to correct the mouse driver issues for over one year, despite numerous complaints on the part of numerous boot Camp users about the mouse driver causing major problems. Apple's position on this is that all Windows issues have nothing to do with them. That might be true . . . except for the small fact that Apple was writing the XP driver software for the mouse that was causing all the problems. This kind of "it's not my responsibility" attitude is something you expect from Microsoft, or perhaps from Dell, but you don't expect from Apple.
After roughly one year of difficulties (blue screens almost every day or every other day, bringing down the system and causing loss of work and endless grief along with two corrupted C drive partitions), I was able to find a fix for this, no thanks to Apple. It's been a shock to see Apple operate the way that every other big corporation in America appears to operate. The Mac side of course works just fine, but I bought this system to use it primarily as a PC (with Mac OS X capability as a backup). If you are never going to use as a dual OS system, this is a fine computer and OS. However, I would strongly caution anyone against buying an Apple laptop or desktop system if they intend to have serious dual boot capability and intend to use some version of Windows more than 10% of the time. What you'll find is a serious lack of support and a position of complete denial of responsibility by Apple for anything that happens under boot Camp. Although they finally provided a viable mouse driver (hence I upgraded this review from one to two stars), they could have not stonewalled me for a year, and simply admitted that their driver was buggy and crash-prone, but they didn't.
Given that this dual operating system capability has become one of Apple's strong selling cards and responsible for a significant fraction of sales, this position by Apple has to be seen as egregious, and totally unacceptable. My discouraged conclusion is that if you intend to use this system to operate any version of Windows, you have to be aware that you will be on your own. Microsoft will regard all OS issues under BootCamp as Apple's problem, Apple will regard them as Microsoft's problem, and in the final analysis, they are all going to be YOUR problem. Watch out!! (and unfortunately the virtual emulation of Windows under Parallels or VMWare is no solution either earlier versions were massively buggy!!)
I am confident that this review will be unpopular with the Mac faithful (leading to poor ratings!) attacking Apple is about like insulting someone's mother in some people's eyes. Such loyalty is admirable, and speaks to some of Apple's strengths which make this experience all the more puzzling. But for anyone that has struggled with an XP, Vista or (soon) Window 7 partition on a MacBook, this experience should be a MAJOR caution. For those who will never cross into the unreliable and buggy world of Windows on this hardware (a most fortunate majority of owners spared all the headaches of the PC world), this is probably a five star system. But it is striking to see such disparity between Apple on these two sides of an issue (OS X support vs Windows support), and it's really a shame. I had hoped for far better.
Footnote April 2010: After finally getting updated drivers from Apple, I have now have four months go by without a single blue screen of death. For this reason I am updating my rating to three stars. I wish Apple had made the updated mouse/touchpad driver widely available earlier, and had informed users of the fact that this driver was very buggy and crash-prone. The Apple side is a five star product, and between that and the restored functionality of the XP/Windows side, I am changing my overall rating upwards. Hopefully Apple learned something that will ensure that future BootCamp users not have to go through what I went through.
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Defnitely the best laptop you can buy. It's almost perfect and hats saying a lot considering how great their products are already. They just keep getting better and better, but this machine is so great it will last me a long time before another upgrade. Bravo!Want Apple MacBook Pro MC226LL/A 17-Inch Laptop Discount?
The best and the right decision that I made! I used a friend's mac for couple of hours last month (when he showed off) and immediately realised why MAC was a cut above the rest. When I decided to buy, thought as well should go for the best in the MACBOOK Pro range. I had so many Windows based laptops over the last decade but this I can say is a prized possession! No more crashes, viruses, firewalls, messy uninstalls, painfully slow startups, blue (or black) screens, registry headaches etc.,After using this, I definitely made a decision not to go back to Windows again. If I did want to use Windows for whatever reason, bootcamp gives the option but not sure why would one want to? After seeing me praise the MAC some of my colleagues have either bought or in the process of buying one. The others who have bought it already say the MAC is 'just awesome!'
If you're reading this with a view to whether you should buy or not, don't waste your time! Just go for it you won't regret your decision.
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