After having a 3 year old Dell died on me (to be fair, was put through multiple trips to school in my bag, sometimes while still on) and a Toshiba Satellite fail after a year, I I was tired of paying bargain prices and receive a frustrating experience to go with it.

My girlfriend had talked about buying a Mac and I have always opposed them as too expensive.Well, most of the major problems with my old laptop was hardware / Compatibility / driver issues. Knowing that Apple makes the hardware and software for its computers made me think he would do these machines work much smoother than the PC I've used.

I actually bought a 13 "MacBook Pro with a glossy screen from Amazon a few days before Apple made its major update in April 2010. It was a beautiful-looking machine, easy to use after they got used to the differences from PC, ie, what is the Finder? However, the 13 "screen was a bit small for me. I work in photography, and watch movies on it, so, so I decided the 15 "MacBook Pro be the way forward. Once they made their update for all machines that I purchased directly from Apple.

I debated long and hard about the option of gloss vs matte. Go to high resolution display (1680 X 1050 in opposition to the standard 1440 X 900) was obvious. After doing some research online I also chose the matte option (as opposed to the default bright). I had never seen a matte screen as the best local-Buy does not have one in stock. I was a little nervous about my decision, but I called Apple tech support and easily prepared for a comeback on me and has not yet reached 15 "MacBook Pro that I want one with a bright screen in place. Even shipping available paid return labels for Apple! I upgrade the hard disk or RAM because I can do the same, or had made, after much cheaper than Apple's prices.

The new 15 "w / screen mate came and opened me up a bit high-resolution videos You-Tube and compared to the shiny side to side. This was half the day and the only window in our living room is the creating all kinds of brilliant reflections on the screen, while the mate was unphased. Of course, blacks in was a deep and brilliant colors may be "more appeared" a bit, but knowing it would be using my laptop in a room lit by daylight or bright light, the reflections on the screen was bright henious definitely a no-go for me. I was very happy to have decided to go mate.

That said, I loaded Photoshop CS5 and it works great. Way faster than my old laptop. I very much appreciate the little details that Apple puts in its products that are becoming more and more evident every day I use it. (As its search function is always available with one click from the desktop) that plan to buy an Applecare plan by the end of my warranty period of one year to make sure it lasts me at least three years. Hopefully I can maintain this for 4 or 5 years.

In general, if you have the $ $ I would recommend this product.

Pros-
- Unibody design is super strong and thin.
- Love the matte screen
- The renovation of the high resolution multi-tasking support, programming, photo editing, web-browing, ect ..
- Super-fast W / Photoshop
- Good side to side viewing angle (better than the screen of the Windows-based laptops I've used)
- Keyboard is very nice to use
- The speakers are adequate
- Touchpad is awesome! Great and easy to use with 2, 3 and 4 finger controls that are not found anywhere else
on a Mac but I rarely use a mouse again, it works well to use on my lap.
- Fast boot time. Open and close the cover of "standby" waiting time is essentially zero.

Cons
- Caro (duh)
- Can be heated in the lower side toward the back where the processor.
angle - Up and down looking not so good (this is common w / laptops though)
- Some software programs are not available for Mac
- USB 2.0 (instead of the new 3.0)
- Glowing Apple logo on the back of the screen is a bit of publicity could do without.
- The sharp edges on the front (apparently can be ground but I like the idea of doing this)
- No Blu-Ray