Apple MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz - 15.4" TFT

Author's product rating:   

Speed	Very fast
Look & Feel	Excellent
Comfort & Portability	Good
Robustness & Durability	Good
Value For Money	Good

Advantages:	Ability to run windows too, the sexy look, the power for the price
Disadvantages:	Battery wears quickly, gets very very hot when using at high performance

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Had my Macbook Pro for 1 year 3 months and loved it from day one. My main reason I chose it was for the look, the ability to use both Mac and Windows, and the power I got for the price I paid. Mines identical to this laptop that I’m reviewing, but I have the 2GB ram.
So for starters..

The Design
Amazing, it’s not often that you find laptops so simple looking, sleek, and hot! The Macbook pro has its built in CD/DVD drive, with all of its little plugs and connectors dotted around the side, and nothing on the back. The web cam is one tiny little black dot situated on top of the screen, unlike some where it’s found on a huge lump, that sits on top of another huge lump! The track pad is large, and the clicking button is large too. The power cable attaches to the laptop by magnetism so if you happen to kick the cable or trip on it, it won’t throw your laptop to the other side of the room, which I’m sure most of us have done once or twice.

The Power
To be honest, the more you pay generally the better your going to. Although, with the macbook pro you do get a little bit better for what you pay when comparing it to other laptops of other brands.

Other general points of interest.
The laptop is fairly durable, although I have not put it to the test yet, and I’ve looked after it like my life, but the occasional scratch and dent has occurred. But the rubber coating that surrounds the laptop does give it a bit of protection against shock.
There is no blackening of the laptop around the keys and on the left of the mouse area that some of the older laptops will develop due to use and general wearing away of the colour. My old Dell discoloured massively, this has not yet!
The anti glare screen is great and makes everything so much clearer in general, but nothing can stop the power of the sun unless of course you have a handy beach umbrella (this is for those of you who enjoy using it outside)
The laptop really isn’t too heavy for its look, being silver in colour, and quite large, it looks like a solid chunk of metal but really isn’t.

The Little things you might want to watch out for
Battery – my battery life started out at around 5hrs long when on lowest brightness and power save mode, but over time using it on battery occasionally (as a student we don’t really carry them around), its worn down to about 1.5hrs when on battery, and I’ve only had it a year and 3 months!! So the battery is a little bit iffy! But nothing that can’t be replaced with a large sum of money (apparently leaving the laptop plugged in and taking the battery out saves its life.. maybe I’ll keep that one in mind for the next one)
Heat – The laptop when not on power save settings, gets hot, when on high performance it roasts, just above the keyboard near the screen gets so hot i can barely hold a finger on it for more than 2 seconds (and I cook a lot, so my fingers aren’t exactly sensitive), although the huge speed increase does make up for the global warming contribution.
CD/DVD Drive – I don’t carry my laptop around a lot, and don’t use the CD/DVD drive a lot either, but mine has scratched, and a friends has done the same, and only reads specific DVD’s. This is a small consideration but apparently can be fixed easily.
USB Ports – The 2 ports are found on each side of the laptop, one on the right and one on the left. So for those of you who might be using hard drives that require a power cable also attached to the laptop (this might not happen as the macbook pro can power most things) you won’t be able to, as the cables wont stretch. But then again its helpful if you don’t want clutter, or you have a wireless mouse that doesn’t pick up well.
Magnetic – The surrounding of the laptop around the front/middle, and the back/left are magnetic so if you have metallic things they do tend to get sucked in every once in a while, but it’s not a problem.
Keyboard – typing is very simple. I admit it took a bit of time to get used to it because my old Dell required a bit of force to get the key down and manage to get a ‘C’ or ‘A’ on the screen, but the amount of force required on the macbook pro is minimal. Also the keyboard lights up for people who enjoy working at night or in the dark.

Windows
With the new mac operating systems you are able to run both windows and mac on the same laptop which can be changed back and forth at start-up. These are both run as separate hard drives which cannot be accessed from a single operating system (so if I were using windows, I couldn’t go onto my mac drive and move things from there). The power of the macbook pro is easily able to cope with windows vista, and the versions to come. I installed windows vista on my macbook using boot camp, and it was so simple. Nothing went wrong, and the amount of help you get on the internet is amazing! Windows worked fine, even the webcam which often stops working when using windows and requires some huge fiddling to fix. But the only tiny problem is that windows works with 2 mouse buttons when the macbook only uses 1, so learning to use it with windows takes sometime but is simple after a while. This was the major factor in choosing my laptop, a machine that runs so smoothly, and with such power that is also able to use windows!

In my opinion the macbook pro is just simply wonderful. Its so simples to use and looks absolutely amazing with its wide screen, slim line look, and silver colour. Only thing to look out for is the battery (which can be avoided) and the heat produced, and maybe the CD/DVD drive too. If someone asked me what laptop to choose, i would definitely recommend macbook pro’s, if not the new one, it would be this!!

The best part of having a macbook pro is that if you do decide to run windows on it (because maybe your a windows guy/gal but love the mac look) is the confusion you see on peoples faces when they look at what your up to in a library or at an internet cafe! so many people ask what is that.. how? why? what.. I don't understand!! just PRICELESS!!