The 17" Unibody MBPs are In...

Except that never happens. Ever.

I turn WiFi off when I use my 3G USB WWAN card but that card is a much bigger power draw than the WiFi so it's a net loss as far as battery life is concerned.

 

I hope that's true. There have been many delays, so I can't say I would be totally surprised if there was yet another one.

Still calling the Apple store SF daily, still nothing.

 

There is a 17" matte option. No black border.

I wonder if 15" will get a matte option too.

 

I may try getting a used 17" unibody in a year or so (cant afford a new one).
How long do you guys expect it will be before the used price drops to 1000 USD ? A couple of years ? Less ?
Nehalem is coming out next year, so I'm hoping that depresses used prices.

 

well I think atleast 2 years for it to drop to 1000usd. ^^

 

Well I think it'll be a long time before it reaches $1000 USD, because the MBA took a long time for it's price to reduce to $1300 that it is today.

 

I'm talking about USED prices

 

I'm sorry, I misunderstood. It'll still take a good while for the prices to hit that low though for the Unibody 17inch MBP.

 

what about getting non-unibody 17"?they are pretty cheap on ebay.

 

Not that cheap.
The sub $1300 ones all seemed to have WSXGA+ screens (I want WUXGA).

 

Got mine!! Called Apple store, they had 2 units, got there within 5 Minutes and snatched one. It's gorgeous, setting it up now....

 

I got my 2.8ghz 15" so I'm going to hold on till the Core i7 MBPs are out instead of going to the 17" just for 8hrs battery and bigger display. If it had a more powerful vid card I'd def went for it though.

Hope everyone gets the glossy screen, anti-glare are boring.

 

Can you comment on the display quality? Brightness, back-lighting, viewing angles etc....

 

unboxing pictures from engadget...

http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/25/macbook-pro-17-inch-unibody-unboxing-and-hands-on/

 

Same here, at this point I'm going to wait for a quad core mbp 17" with a superior gpu.

But I'm probably going to plunk down for the Gainstown Mac Pro desktop.

 

Wow, they got the specs maxed out and with matte screen option.

Looking forward to their in-depth hands on in the next few days.

 

Very bright which is a good thing because it's reflective as hell too. Viewing angles are very good but there is a slight discoloration when you move your head off center. It's fine for day to day use though.

I am sitting with my back to the window right now, it's a bright day, and there are many reflections. I guess that will take some getting used to. At the same time, using the matte screen MBP 15" in very bright conditions is far from ideal too.

Used the 'book yesterday at night too and was pleased to see that the screen can be turned down all the way to where it's perfect at night.

One huge improvement over my MBP15" is heat - this thing barely gets warm, even when sitting on a blanket. That's nice.

 

when you say it's warm, is it when you are using the 9400m or the 9600m gt?

 

yeah, it will be nice to see how the matte option compares to our glossy ones!!!

 

I just went from a 17 inch Gateway 6860 FX to this MacBook, it still feels ridiculously small.

 

One day use update: I can deal with the reflections. Also note that the glossy comes with the super duper color reproduction, 60% better than even the 15" MBP. Maybe that's why the picture looks so stunning, not sure.

In most situations you can run on 50% brightness, even in Cafes, etc, which is good because it affects battery life. I got about 6 hours 30 minutes real life battery life with the graphics set to save power. It was cut short a little bit because I decided to re-index my hard disk after spotlight was acting up, which uses lots of CPU and hard drive access and shortened the predicted battery remaining from an hour to 15 minutes. I think 7 hours would be realistic and easy if no unusual events occur. 8 hours like Apple claims is probably doable if you actually only surf the web and don't do anything else but I don't think that's ever going to happen for me.

I am very happy with battery life. The MBP went to hibernate at 0% as it should, and all worked fine.

- Build: The laptop feels extremely solid. I feel like I can cram this into the backpack and it won't matter at all.
- Closing the lid is fantastic. It's perfect. It's a bit like closing the door on a Mercedes - everything is just right.
- Three and four finger gestures are awesome. We'll see how much real life use they provide but they are certain to impress friends and acquaintances
- Sound: Very loud. Very, very loud.
- Keyboard: Perfect 10, as expected.
- Weight - surprisingly a total non-issue.
- Size: A vast expanse of screen in front of me. All apps start with the settings as they were on the 15" MBP thanks to TimeMachine so I get a perfect comparison to the old screen size which was comparatively _tiny_. The laptop still fits in my small-ish Axio hard shell bag - good design, Axio

Let me know if you have any questions....

 

Intel is shipping 32 nm process at the end of 2009, probably mobile later on. I'd love to play with Core i7 and especially the new crc32 instruction - at 32 nm, it would be very sweet. Maybe even quad-core will become more common in laptops.