After having a 3 year-old Dell die on me (to be fair it was put through multiple trips to and from school in my bag, sometimes while it was still on) and a Toshiba Satellite fail after a year, I was tired of paying bargain prices and receiving a frustrating experience to go with it.
My girlfriend had talked about buying a Mac and I always balked at them as being too expensive. Well, most of the main problems with my old laptops were compatibility issues between hardware and software, often involving frustrating searches for new drivers. Knowing that Apple makes the hardware and develops the software for their computers made me think they would be able to integrate the two aspect better than PC's I have used. I still have nightmares about all the drivers I had to hunt down when I downgraded my Toshiba from Windows Vista to XP.
I had actually purchased a 13" Macbook Pro with a glossy screen from Amazon a few days before Apple did their big upgrade in April 2010. It was a beautiful looking machine and was easy to use after I became accustomed to the differences from a PC, ie; What is the "Finder"? However, the 13" screen was a little small for me. I do some photography work, and I watch movies on it as well so I decided the 15" Macbook Pro would be the way to go. Once they did their upgrade for all their machines I decided to buy directly from Apple.
I debated long and hard on the glossy vs. matte option. Going with the high-res screen (1680 X 1050 as opposed to standard 1440 X 900) was a no-brainer. After doing some online research I also chose the matte option (as opposed to the default glossy screen). I had never actually seen a matte screen as the local Best-Buy didn't have one in stock. I was a little nervous on my decision, but I called Apple tech support and easily arranged for a return on my not-yet-arrived 15" Macbook Pro should I want one with a glossy screen instead. The person I spoke with even arranged for return shipping labels paid for by Apple! I didn't upgrade the harddrive or RAM because I can do those myself, or have them done later, for a lot cheaper than Apple's pricing.
The new 15" w/ the matte screen came and I opened up some high-res You-tube videos and compared it side-by-side to the glossy. This was the middle of the day and the lone window in our living room was creating all sorts of reflections on the glossy screen while the matte was unphased. Sure the blacks on the glossy were a deeper and the colors might have "popped" a little more, but knowing I would be using my laptop in a room lit by daylight or with a bright light, the henious reflections on the glossy screen definitely made it a no-go for me. This was a window that was in front of the computer and wasn't even directly shining on the screen. I was really happy I decided to go matte.
That being said, I have loaded up Photoshop CS5 and it runs great. Way faster than my old laptop. I appreciate a lot of the little touches that Apple puts into their products that are becoming more and more noticable every day I use it. (Such as their search feature is always available with 1 click from the desktop) I plan to buy an Applecare plan towards the end of my one-year warranty period to make sure this lasts me at least 3 years. Hopefully I might be able to keep this for 4 or 5 years.
Overall, if you have the $$ I highly recommend this product.
Pros-
Unibody design is super-sturdy and slim.
Love the matte screen
The high resolution upgrade helps with multi-tasking, programming, photo-editing, web-browing, ect..
Super-fast w/Photoshop
Good side-to-side viewing angle, (better than the screen on the Windows-based laptops I have used)
Keyboard is very pleasant to use
Speakers are adequate
Touchpad is awesome! Large and easy to use with 2, 3, and 4 finger controls not found anywhere else
but on a Mac. I rarely use a mouse anymore, which works well for using it on my lap.
Quick boot up time. Opening and closing the lid for "sleep mode" waiting time is basically zero.
Good battery life
Cons
Expensive (duh)
Can get hot on the underneath towards the back where the processor is located.
Up and down viewing angle not so good (this is common w/laptops though)
Some software not available for Mac
USB 2.0 (instead of newer 3.0)
Glowing Apple logo on the back of the screen is a bit of advertising I could do without.
Sharp Edges on front (can apparently be filed down but I am wary about doing this)
No Blu-Ray drive
Update:
Maybe it is just me, but my Apple seems to have more issues with Flash and streaming internet content than I have ever had with a PC. I know Apple is at war with Adobe and has gone to great lengths to disparage the Flash format. They do not seem to have worked too hard to ensure that Flash content works flawlessly with their machines. Streaming videos will stop or fail to load alltogether. This doesn't happen often, but with a PC I never had any issues like this at all.
Update x2 (8/30/10)
So my power supply had been giving me intermittent issues (every couple of days the power would come on and go off every couple of seconds for no reason). I called Apple support and they recommended just using the shortened version (the power supply is customizable to be either longer with an additional cord, or not), and then to call them back if the problem continued. The guy I talked to thought the cord that lengthens the setup might be the issue. Well I wasn't have any more problems for a while....
Then yesterday (the day before I started a new job teaching at a university) the power supply quits working completely. I call Apple and they say contact the authorized Apple service providers in my area (neither of which were open that day since it was Sunday). The next day, Monday, I called the 2 authorized service providers in my area, one of which says I need to leave my computer there overnight for testing to determine if I am eligible for a new power supply, and the other which couldn't handle my problem when I was available to come.
Now I try to contact Apple support and all day I have been getting the most ridiculous message that says
"At this moment, the customer support team is not available for your support due to unavoidable reasons.. Sorry for the inconvenience caused.."
I suppose it is impossible for Apple to properly staff their service center, so not being available was of course, unavoidable. So I am stuck with a bogus power cord for now.
Update x3 (9/2/10)
I decided to choose the option where I call Apple about my problem, instead of them calling me. That worked much better. I received my replacement power cord in the mail today, a Thursday, after my power supply originally quit working altogether on Sunday. I have to send back the old one, which has actually started to work intermittently now. If Apple deems that I replaced a non-broken power supply they are going to charge me $80. We'll see...
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