I bought a L...aptop!

[Double Negative]

In case y'all missed it, Apple announced a rev to their MB and MBP lines this morning! In a nutshell:

"Once the part numbers were revealed in the Mac rumor community, it was inevitable. On Tuesday morning, Apple announced the expected refresh to its ever-popular notebook line. The main improvements for both model lines include the newest 45 nanometer Intel Core 2 Duo processors known as “Penryn,” which promises better performance and longer battery life. MacBook Pros also receive spiffier NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processors with up to 512MB of RAM and the Multi-Touch trackpad that first made its debut on the MacBook Air. Apple also claims the MacBook Pro is up to 74% faster than the original version, which came out two years ago. Otherwise, they look the same as the models they replace, and they are reportedly shipping now. Indeed, not too shabby, but, you’ll have to wait for the reviewers to get their hands on these babies to determine how well they operate in the real world."

So I picked up a 17" glossy hi-rez display'ed, 7,200rpm'ed drive lappy. w00t!

Faster CPU, faster GPU. LED backlit display, yay! Faster, less power = good.

http://images.apple.com/macbookpro/images/software_hero20080226.jpg

[stathunter]

Thanks for offering this confusion........I am in the process of deciding on what computer to buy........not there are more choices! :)

[Double Negative]

IMO, the MBP is pretty much among the best laptops out there. Sure it's a little spendy but a top of the heap Stinkpad is just as pricey if not more so. I'm a Mac person, and a Unix person - so there was no other choice. :p

When buying a laptop it's always wise to "go big" since you can't upgrade it like you can a desktop.

My only hangup was with the glossy vs. matte display. Not that I intend to do my color correction on the laptop when the desktop is handy - but it is important in the field occasionally. Either is just fine for this task, though this is a dividing issue out there ("Matte vs. Glossy for Photo-Editing"). The prevailing InterWeb-Wisdom(TM) makes sense that if you intend to print, go with matte. If you do online stuff mostly, go with glossy. I don't know, I like the nicer, sharper display of the glossy either way. I did also opt for the higher resolution version (1920x1200 vs. 1680x1050). That's the difference between a 20" and 24" display basically, just in a 17" format.

[Bootsie]

Man I am so jealous! I have been wanting to make the switch to mac for years now, but I am just not sure if I need a new notebook yet. These new Macbook Pros make me want to switch even more.

[hurley1718]

Hey DN you are making me very jealous. I want a new one so bad it hurts. I hate this hobby!!!!! Okay, I'm back to loving this hobby....

[Double Negative]

It was a hard decision... 300mm f/2.8L IS or a laptop... The laptop was actually cheaper!

[gary88]

I hope my Vaio craps out soon so I can have some justification for picking up a new MacBook Pro!

Plus I can get a $200 off them with my student discount :D

[SuzyView]

I'm saving for the 200 f2. So, my laptop has to last me the next 2 years.

But congrats! Sounds good to me.

[TomTomTuning]

Ahh man that is awesome. I got rid of my labtop a couple weeks ago, and i thought about picking up a mac as its replacement. This looks awesome

[timnosenzo]

Nice choice on the 17" high res! I have the previous generation one (was the current gen until today... :( ) but the display is awesome! Enjoy it!

[Double Negative]

Thanks, everyone! :)

I had a 17" MBP through my last job but it was ancient by today's standards... 1.5GHz G4 model. Being a mortgage company, they went Chapter 11 a couple of months ago and wanted it back... *sigh*

The rumor mill has been busy on new MBPs "any day now" and today, finally - was the day. Best time to get a laptop is when it's freshly rev'ed, I figure. Get the most life out of the specs.

I can attest to the old CFL backlighting getting dimmer and dimmer over time; the old G4 MBP was getting quite dim. The new LED backlighting doesn't have that problem, thankfully and instantly powers on (no warmup). So waiting has paid off almost for this alone.

timnosenzo, you really like the high rez, then? That was another issue I debated, albeit briefly. I need glasses for reading/computer work so I figured I can't read it without glasses anyway - might as well go for the higher resolution, then! Heh.

[timbernet]

It was a hard decision... 300mm f/2.8L IS or a laptop... The laptop was actually cheaper!

Since I have two laptops (Mac and Windows) and three desktops, I think I would have gone for the 300 f/2.8 :-D

[Double Negative]

Since I have two laptops (Mac and Windows) and three desktops, I think I would have gone for the 300 f/2.8 :-D

It was not an easy decision, believe me... But right now I can use the laptop more.

Come summer, that's another story.

[timnosenzo]

timnosenzo, you really like the high rez, then? That was another issue I debated, albeit briefly. I need glasses for reading/computer work so I figured I can't read it without glasses anyway - might as well go for the higher resolution, then! Heh.

Honestly, it freakin rules. Its actually the reason why I went for the 17", I had a perfectly good 15" MBP, but once I saw a 17" high res, my 15" went up for sale. I don't know if you're aware, but if you hold down the CTRL key and scroll (either with a mouse scroll wheel or with the 2 finger scroll on the touch pad), you can zoom into the screen. Nice for when you want text blow up or something.

[Double Negative]

^ That's what I figured... :)

I knew about the zoom, but don't use it much currently... We'll see how the new screen looks when I get it. It's not like you can't change the size of text in browsers and terminal windows anyway, not to mention icon and icon text sizes. I can live with the interface text size (menus, etc.) until Apple releases Resolution Independence features for OS X which should be "real soon now."

The best part about the high resolution is the 133dpi... It makes everything sharper on the screen. Real shame they didn't intro Blu-Ray drives this time around. You can display 1080p video at full rez on these things.

I think I'm gonna like it!

[SoaringUSAEagle]

It was a hard decision... 300mm f/2.8L IS or a laptop... The laptop was actually cheaper!

By what, $500 or so? Pft ;)

Nice choice. I still have my MBP 2.33Ghz 2GB RAM.... that new LED display would be super sweet though! Along with all the other goodies... :D

[Mark_Cohran]

I'll be upgrading in a couple of more years - for now, I'm going to continue to make do with my G4 PowerBook. :)

[Double Negative]

True, Jeff - not by much, especially after the BTO options... :/

Mark, if I had one I would too. With Macs it was rare that I ever feel a real need to upgrade. Even my oldest G4, a 2001 Quicksilver at 867MHz still works great and feels snappy. I plan to use this laptop for a good five years if not longer so I'm a happy camper. The G4 PB I had before from work was three years old, and still looked like brand new. Never had any trouble until the end where the HDD was starting to flake out - but that's an easy fix. I'm not at all surprised as I dragged that thing all over the place.