REVIEW: MacBook Pro 17-inch

I replaced my 17″ PowerBook (1GHz) with a 17″ MacBook Pro. After half a day with the MacBook Pro, I’ve got almost all good things to say about my new machine (so far).
The one downside is the heat when it is plugged in and set at “Better Performance” it is almost untouchable on the bottom. I was installing all of my applications and copying my files over from my LaCie Big Disk (FW 800) and sitting wide-eyed at the speed at which my iTunes library came over when I decided to check on the heat.
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Contributed by: Bob Fish

I replaced my 17″ PowerBook (1GHz) with a 17″ MacBook Pro. After half a day with the MacBook Pro, I’ve got almost all good things to say about my new machine (so far).
The one downside is the heat when it is plugged in and set at “Better Performance” it is almost untouchable on the bottom. I was installing all of my applications and copying my files over from my LaCie Big Disk (FW 800) and sitting wide-eyed at the speed at which my iTunes library came over when I decided to check on the heat.
My hands are usually heat-proof pulling things from the toaster/microwave, etc., but this was a whole new level of heat! I must say that it cooled down VERY quickly when I unplugged the ultra-cool safe-mag adapter. It runs very nicely and even what I would call cool on the normal setting.
Another small negative is that if you’re using a light colored screen background, you can see a halo in both bottom corners from the backlight. This goes away with a darker background.
Upsides are speed and everything else. Application launch/relaunch is slightly faster on some apps, and slightly slower on others. As the new versions arrive, we all know that’ll be just fine. Apple apps like iTunes and iPhoto launch BEFORE the icon on the dock comes down from its single bounce!
The screen has a “sheen” to it that makes blacks look blacker and of course the brightness makes everything look better! For the first time, I had to use the ambient light setting because it was actually hurting my eyes last night after my wife turned out the lights (Yes, I had the machine in bed with me). Speaking of it sitting on the bed, it still did not build up too much heat. I have heard no fan or processor whine, and it really seems to have cured all of the early problems with the 15″ machines.
The speakers are different for sure. I don’t need my external speakers for iTunes.
Boot Camp installation of Windows XP Pro went just fine. I am running a little shareware program to use control-clicking for right click. I am thinking of setting up an applescript to dismount the second drive on startup of the Mac OS side, but no complaints there.
Contributed by: Bob Fish