Reading that the June refresh of the Macbook Pro line did improve the display immensely,

[Deja Q]

I bought it.

(I did have a buyer lined up for my 15" model beforehand, though I'm still at a net loss. Not as bad of a net loss as otherwise having two MBPs sitting around the place... :D )

[onehandle]

1. The 17-inch?

If so, welcome to 1920 x 1200 portability.

And I don't know if this is your first unibody, but ohmigod are they ever works of art.

[Deja Q]

2. Yup. 17". It's my second unibody. My first was

the 15" unibody (early 2009), now sold and prepping for delivery so I can pay back masturcard, LOL.

I love 1920x1200, but the difference in shadow detail and color saturation, especially with the reds and oranges, is like night and day. Actually, purples got a big boost too. I forgot half of my wallpapers had purple in them, LOL...

People on Mac forums are worried about waiting for the inevitable major refresh of the Macbook Pro line. As the nVidia 230M and 260M chipsets are largely rebranding of the 9400M and 9600M (one site claimed 9600M and 9800M), but either way it's a new name with same hardware, any MBP's additions will be a faster CPU (one that won't overheat in the MBP chassis; the HP Pavillion dv7-3085 uses the i7 and people are complaining of thermal death, oopsie), 7200RPM standard drive, cheaper base model possibly. But future MBPs might be 1920x1080. 1920x1200 is more tangible when going from 1440x900... big-time.

Never mind, when prices go down, so does resale value. Better to take a $500 hit now than $1000 in 6 months. It's still dual-core, but it does not slouch.

Indeed, the new 17" with the stock 500GB 5400RPM drive, with my data and apps transferred, still loads FASTER than the 320GB 7200RPM drive. That was a shock. Oh, for really large video files I'd see a drop in performance, but not much and my uses aren't video editing to begin with. :D

And the data and app transfer process is one Windows will NEVER be able to do. Absolutely seamless. Loving it... hopefully won't need to do it again for another 3~5 years...

It'll be GREAT when doing layout and Flash programming work. No need for a lot of irritating scrolling.

Actually, most windows laptops still use core 2 duos, at 2.0 ~ 2.5GHz with, only at their 17" screen models, 1600x900 res. Puke. Plus the number of licenses I'd have to re-purchase, and the hassle of windows and the decade-old problems MS has yet to resolve, it's simply better to stay Mac. I saw the raw numbers and while the 17" may be a tad overpriced, I'd rather pay the extra now and live without post-purchase hassles.

[onehandle]

3. FYI, I stay in the 9400 mode 100% of the time.

The first couple of days I switched back and forth. I work in Adobe CS4, Final Cut Studio, MS Office... Pretty much the major packages. All run fine in 9400 mode. 9600 is recommended for HD video, but except for some personal experimentation, I still do mostly web resolution stuff.

The real reason I stayed in 9400 mode is for Warcraft. Under 9600 the fan cranked up a bit. I am happy in the 30-40 fps zone, so on the third day of ownership, I set it to 9400 and didn't look back.

And under 9400 I have gotten 7 hours or so under battery power doing a bit of design, surfing and playing audio/video.

Cool. Quiet. Perfect.

[Deja Q]

4. Wow!

I stick with 9600 mode, solely because it has dedicated RAM (the 9400 borrows 256MB from the system RAM and I have some hefty sized documents and layouts)

Of course, if I kept only one big document open and not three, then it wouldn't be as much an issue... :D

I'll try the 9400 mode more in-depth, I am likely missing out on little... thx!

[onehandle]

5. Keep in mind that I did bump the machine up to 8GB of RAM once it got here from China.

Also I got the 3.06 and the 7200 drive.

Now the big question.

Glossy or Anti-Glare?

[Deja Q]

6. Nice! And yeah,

amazing that even with a 7200RPM drive you get that battery life...

Though a larger 5400RPM drive will be faster than a smaller density 7200RPM drive, which is why my new 17" is faster with HD access than the upgraded 15" I had prior to now!

I will likely get a 500MB/7200RPM one day, though I'm not keen on wanting to disassemble the MBP...

I will need to open it anyway, if I go 8GB (when prices become reasonable).

Glossy. Anti-glare option wasn't at Best Buy. :(

[Tesha]

7. Not a SSD (Solid-State Drive)? If you can live with (currently) 250 GB, they're fastest.

Except for very large, prolonged writes.

Tesha