17-inch unibody MacBook Pros now shipping?
By Ross Miller 
posted Feb 13th 2009 5:29PM
posted Feb 13th 2009 5:29PM
[Thanks, Michael]
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Heh, I might get one of these for school.
3000$ heavy computer for school, yeah, good idea!!
it's only heavy if you're a pussy.
Where are you buying these for $1,000??!!
Yeah! I can't wait to buy this and then return it in a year to the depot so it can miss class for 2 weeks while it's being refitted with a new battery (Thanks, Unibody)! And I can't wait to look frantically for a place to plug in my laptop every chance I get cause the battery is drained so quickly by the awesome gigantic screen and power-hungry NVidia card! I also can't wait to get a new one, because this idea of Planned Obsolescence is so ingrained in me since I've watched all those Mac commercials.
Great for school, all right!
What school do you go to and is there a shop that sells balaclavas and coshes nearby?
"My rich mommy might buy one of these for me to use in school" is more like it.
The guy using the $800 PC can do all the exact same thing you can with your $3000 show off machine.
But I have to agree with the other poster and say even better yet, the guy using the note pad and pen will be the one to succeed. Hes there for a reason (to learn - not spend mommy and daddy's money.)
A lot of whiny little bitches on this thread. If the guy in in high school you all might have a point. What if he or she in in, say Journalism school or maybe a graphic design school? I'll bet you that a 17" Mac pro does a much better job running CS4 than an $800 Windows laptop.
Just because you can't afford one is no reason to behave like douchebags yourselves.
Oh, and iEye? Go drink some bleach.
Actually Craig, if he was running CS4 he'd be better using the Vista 64 bit version on a Lenovo W series.
Wow, poor people are haters..
What's with the crying about a student spending 3000 on a laptop, maybe he worked all last year and saved the money up, maybe his family simply has the money to spend and they prefer the mac. Kinda crappy to have a forum jump up and down as though 3000 dollars is some obscene outlandish amount of cash. Sure you get different models of Macs cheaper, or another PC even less than those, but if you have the money whats wrong with getting what you want? Personally I would go with the 15 or 13 and a external monitor in the room, but for me its a size issue. Also is this judgment only reserved for students, who must apparently be poor by your standards, or is it anyone who buys a Mac, cause unless you are taking over the responsibility for my finances by paying my rent, car and insurance, I am going to recommend you mind your own affairs.
So like chill on the financial judgments yo, some people have extra money and that's perfectly OK.
But then he'd be running windows. I use windows for a lot of thing, and CS4 may or may not be faster on a lenovo, but personally I prefer Photoshop on the Mac.
I thought my £900 ($1500 these days) on my 2.4 alu macbook was well worth it.. the premium is worth it for the sturdiness alone. Plus win 7 works like a charm for when i need to play games :)
People will always complain about stuff that's expensive. The PS3 has sold loads and is, in my opinion, still overpriced. Audiophile equipment is often stupidly expensive for the sake of a few extra Hz or a teeny bit more clarity that most people would only notice on an oscilloscope.
End of the day, you're an idiot if you base your product purchases from blog comments.
So what if it's his parents that pay for it? Some of you guys act like that's an intrinsically bad thing.
Statement: "I might buy a 17" mbp"
Illogical and irrelevant responses:
"Yeah but it's your parents money!!"
"and the guy with the pencil and paper will do better!"
"you don't need it!"
As if you 100% actually NEED 99% of the stuff on this site.
What do you consider so scandalous about someone considering spending $3000 on a laptop?? This is a gadget site ffs. Take your unconcealed jealousy and insecurity somewhere else.
A laptop is not a solution for serious graphic design. You need a real desktop, 24inch+ monitor with a wacom. CS3 adn CS4 are proved to run better on windows anyway and if you run windows on a mac, you better save 2000$ and buy a pc. A 700$ Duo2core 3ghz will do the job perfectly as most design apps are not really multitreaded. Better spend the money on a good monitor. (no no, not a shinny apple one). RAM is the key here.
@ RoboDan
Lets at least get our facts straight: The battery replacement is going to be $179 and it will be a same day repair at a retail store...
CHRIST! ONLY $180?
I thought it would be at least... oh F**k it, it's still a pain in the D*** and A** and.
*#&$#*@
#@*#$
Apple will fail and will be swept away by the winds of time in the next 10 years (Think: Lack of upgradeability, shifting mindsets/budgets, less "superiority" as the OS suffers from more holes and an increasing number of viruses, UNIBODY, etc.)
Mark. My. Words.
And yes, it is crazy, but tell me that to me in 10 years.
obviously some of you havent done your research very well before you post ignorant ramblings about short battery life and replacing the battery in a year. This machine has a 8 hour battery life and a battery than can last for 5 years through normal use.....
my Config to Order system still shows the 2/19 shipping date
Mine still shows 2-27-09 for shipping.....
I am in the same boat.
Dispatches 19/02/09 should hopefully be here 02/03/09.
There was me all excited as well thinking maybe it had shipped, ahh well, not to worry, the excitement can wait.
Shouldn't this be Breaking news?
Well, it is just a rumor, not confirmed yet.
inb4jason
(Crudely) Fixed that for you:
http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/6133/mbp17inchconfirmorderruqv4.jpg
Yeap, shipped Feb 11th, posting on it right now. Very snappy machine, and I am loving the display.
Still did you see the test here at engadget? the macbook display quality is lower than even the Dell mini 9...
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/28/laptop-display-comparison-awards-top-marks-to-lenovo/
That was the 15" not the 17". It should be interesting to see how the 17" display measures up
"Still did you see the test here at engadget? the macbook display quality is lower than even the Dell mini 9..."
No. The color accuracy was slightly less than the mini 9. The Mac Book has a better viewing angle and is larger. Also, if you bothered to read the entire article, which I doubt, you'd also know that the author liked the MBP display just fine for a laptop, and indicated that it was above the acceptable threshold for a laptop.
Nonetheless, there is no excuse for the MBP to not have the very best display available.
Man, poor guy ordered Jan 7th and it's just now getting shipped!!! Steve Jobs should personally deliver this order to the guys house. I ordered mine today (2/13) and ship date March 16th a good 4 weeks before it reaches my door. I hope they get it out before then.
I don't recall Gates or Ballmer personally delivering copies of Vista when it arrived 4 YEARS late....
Seriously, everyone who ordered a 17" Macbook Pro was given the option to cancel their orders if they didn't want to wait.
Poor guy for ordering on the 7th? I ordered on the 6th and it has yet to be shipped. >
A computer product shipping? Well g'dayum I might be drunk but whoopty f****ing do!
Apple can treat Mac-tards however they want and they'll keep crawling back for me. I think it's hilarious. Hey, you can't knock the hustle.
I can confirm this, my client's 17" Unibody is on the way with an estimated delivery date of the 17th.
I'll be your "client" too, in exchange for a 17" unibody MBP...
Oh Snap!!!
k?
RoboDan: You will be able to have the batteries replaced at any Apple Store same day with an appointment.
Battery on this unit rated better than those on the 15-inchers.
And its two Nvidia cards, one not so power hungry the other so.
---
Boards of Canada:
"At the time, Apple was beginning the transition to LED backlights in its laptop line, and what we found was the display was incrementally better than the company's previous offerings in this size and offered a decent platform for assessing and doing basic adjusting of pictures in the field. In short, the screen was good and it responded well to hardware profiling but overall accuracy was a couple of notches below a good desktop display. Still, we concluded that Apple was making one of the finest laptop screens we'd seen for use in a pro digital photography workflow."
-http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-9320-9876
Still the Lenovo/IBM thinkpads win in both categories.
Ordering the displays with an emphasis on colour accuracy, the list looks like this:
1. Lenovo ThinkPad W700
2. IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad T60
3. Dell Inspiron Mini 9
4. Apple late-2008 MacBook Pro 15 inch
Ordering the displays with an emphasis on viewing angle flexibility, the list becomes:
1. IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad T60
2. Lenovo ThinkPad W700
3. Apple late-2008 MacBook Pro 15 inch
4. Dell Inspiron Mini 9
@Boards of Canada. I hope you understand that people buy laptops not only for their display. There are tons of other stuff packed into the MBP17 and in its class it is surprisingly not even the most expensive.
what, no cheesedick jason vorhees photoshop?
No Thanks......
I would have considered this DESPITE the ridiculous price but the Sheer foolishness of voiding the warranty or having to do surgery on the thing just to up the memory or HD is just foolish.
Besides the thing has 17" screen already NOT very nimble or compact .....add the extra thickness to get the battery mechanism already! SSEESH! That would have made it at least palatable. I'll stick with my easily upgradeable 15" Unibody LOVE IT!
both HD and memory are user-upgradeable, as explained in the manual, so I really don't know what you are talking about.
My comments were posted the same day as the Manual was posted.
Soooo yes upgrade ability by US the user is always good. Now the only draw back I can see is the inability to switch out batteries on long trips....but that is not such a big deal.
Yes much more palatable.
Mine says
Ships: Mar 10
Delivers: Mar 13
:(
Apple has already published the MacBook Pro 17" Manual on its web site. Check http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/MacBook_Pro_17inch_Early2009.pdf
Thank you for contributing to the article rather than posting senseless rants. Thank you.
Man..I think people should stop lynching that dude...Who can tell you what you need and don't need..If you "WANT" a $3000 MacBook Pro and you save the money to buy it for yourself..Then good job!! ENJOY IT! I am a graphic artist and I'm sure there are other solutions that wouldn't be as expensive but I wanted to make the switch from PC to Mac.
I'm hoping to purchase one of these within the next month or two. Though I still can't quite decide whether 17" is too big or not. I plan on using it at school next year. (I'm going to major in visual effects, so a large display is nice, and the power is welcomed as well) We'll see I suppose...
Wow , I can't wait to drop $3240 on 1 laptop. I will be so popular n get all the chicks.,.nOT!!!!at least it has a blu ray player ,card slots, n hdmi.NOT!!