The Bottom Line: An excellent laptop for pro users, tech support and customer service went out of their way to be helpful and to ensure that I was happy.

As a professional photographer I rely upon my computers as a major part of my workflow. I jumped through hoops to get my MacBook Pro configured with 2GB of RAM (I live in Chicago, and made the hilarious error of trying to purchase the laptop at the flagship store on Michigan Avenue, only to learn that they weren't carrying the top of the line pro system with the fastest configuration of RAM and a hard drive compatible with fast file transfer rates.) After going back home and ordering the system online (a process that was simple and efficient - nice web site system) I waited 10 days for my system to arrive.

Within one day of getting my MacBook Pro I started to get strange errors (the system wasn't showing items on the desktop that were saved to it, and then the screen froze and upon reboot nothing would power on.) I tried calling for tech suppot and spent about two hours with a very nice technician who did try to resolve the situation over the phone. She narrowed the problem down to a bad set of RAM and recommended that I either go back to the Chicago based store or return the system for repair.

The "genius" bar at the chicago store is a very efficient system that has two waiting queues, one for people with ipod issues and the other for mac system repairs/troubleshooting.

A particulary helpful tech was able to pull up notes from the phone call I had with tech support which saved time and eliminated the frustration of having to start all over again. He was able to isolate which stick of RAM was the bad one and within ten minutes he had my system up an running. NO charge for the service or the replacement RAM...

The system is now 100% and I'm very pleased with it. The screen is bright and perfect for photo editing (17 inch version) I'm running Aperture and a number of processor intensive programs and things run quickly and smoothly. Even those programs that I worried would be slow due to the INTEL change over seem to be faster than my Powerbook G4 managed.

The laptop really can't sit on your lap for very long (it runs really really hot.) but that wasn't what I wanted it for anyway.

As far as I'm concerned the bad stick of RAM was an inconvience, but Apple took good care of me and resolved the issue as soon as I brought it to thier attention. The system itself is an excellent addition to my workflow. I expect to find it a better and better purchase as more software (especially photoshop) become available in INTEL format.

As for the actual function and capabilities of the laptop:
1. The backlight function of the keyboard is really handy when working on planes or in my case just as often in the back of a car on the way back from a photo shoot.

2. The iSight camera embedded in the frame of the monitor produces a nice clear image that I expect would be quite usefull for web conference calls and even taking quick pics of locations or the things around you - but I have only used it to take a quick shot of myself to use as my image for iChat.

3. The keyboard layout and extra space for your hands provided by the size of the 17 inch version is excellent. I thought I would need to travel with a wireless mouse in order to make this system usauable, but even the trackpad is fast enough and ergonomic enough (poor grammer, but you get my meaning) to facilate major use in the field without extra hardware being needed.

4. The screen is really nice and bright, as a side note if you are looking at any of the systems with the glossy screen (I think the non-pro versions) keep in mind that they look great, but are awful for actual photo editing or using outside. At least in my opinon the gloss is a major mistake.

5. The addition of firewire 800 port to the three (yes 3!) USB ports and the firewire 400 port makes this laptop more efficient and useful than my G5 desktop.

6. I'm still getting used to the new format power supply that uses some sort of magnet to stay attached (the plan is to make it so that when your dog runs by and catches the cord the system doesn't go flying off of your lap...in reality what keeps happening is that I keep unplugging myself from power because I'm a figgitty person and I change positions often enough to tangle myself up.)

7. My photo editing and importing workflow is much faster, I can't give you an exact percentage of speed improvement, but to my unoficial impression I'd say at least 50% faster, but more importantly two software titles that I rely on are now running consistently better (aperture used to freeze up or quit on my old system and the Canon import software that coverts RAW images to jpeg - an intensive process due to the large size of the files my camera produces - both run much faster and without any errors.

8. The system runs HOT... did I say hot? I meant REALLY REALLY HOT. While writing this review I placed it onto my lap and put my legs up onto the coffee table and now I'm feeling a bit cooked! Doesn't seem to effect performance, it's just a super powerful thing inside a metal case...

I'm happy to answer any specific questions about this system that I haven't covered in my review...

My system specs:

Machine Name: MacBook Pro 17"
Machine Model: MacBookPro1,2
CPU Type: Intel Core Duo
Number Of Cores: 2
CPU Speed: 2.16 GHz
L2 Cache (shared): 2 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz