Santa Rosa-based MacBook Pro review roundup

While we're sure plenty of you have already made up your minds about the new Santa Rosa-based MacBook Pros, those still on the fence now have plenty of reviews to aid in their decision-making, a few of which we've rounded up for ya. On the whole, most everyone so far seems to have been mightily impressed with the unit -- its screen, in particular, which ComputerWorld describes as "best-looking LCD screen Apple has produced" (referring to the 17-inch model) and NoteBookReview hails as the the reviewer has "ever seen on a laptop" (the 15-inch one, in this case). Not surprisingly, they also found much to like about the laptop's new Santa Rosa platform, which Ars Technica found to outperform the previous model in all but one benchmark test (unzipping a 254.6MB archive), while also giving it a boost in battery life (even if it doesn't quite live up to Apple's claims). Those looking for yet more benchmarks can check out the Touchy Fire-Fly blog, which also put the MacBook through a range of tests. Among the downsides noted by Ars were the lack of LED-backlighting on the 17-inch model, comparatively poor OpenGL performance, and that ever-present heat issue. NoteBook Review would have also liked to see a built-in memory card reader and more than two USB ports. That said, none of them have much trouble recommending the laptop, with ComputerWorld even going so far as to call it the "best laptop Apple has ever made."

Read - Ars Technica
Read - ComputerWorld
Read - NotebookReview
Read - Touchy Fire-Fly