They are good.

If money's not an issue (and if you run your own business, 1K is really ridiculous pocket change), that's really a great box.

2 USB? So what, it is hooked to a 7-port stackable USB hub here and there is no single problem. You can stack hubs on hubs for "as many ports as you need."

I've got a MBP 13 from 2 generations before and it is really a pleasure to work with it.

Mine lives into a Henge dock http://www.hengedocks.com/ and is hooked on a 24" display.

There are plenty of other PCs with XP, Vista, ... and Linux Mint over here. Needless to say, most work happens on the MBP13". And I was a PC guy. That says a lot.

Take me down as well :-)

I understand why this is not cheaper, that just not Apples market, let Dell and lenovo etc fight it out down there,

At a thousand quid i dont understand why its not better specified.

Expensive?

I've run Powerbooks, Powerbook Pros, Macbook Pros for the past 12 years. They are only expensive if you only look a raw specs. If you look at the whole package they aren't.

I recently challenged our IT department to find me a laptop with the same specification for less money. I wanted the same battery life, the same screen resolution and quality, the same graphics chipset. They couldn't. The killer was battery life and screen quality.

Its all about horses for courses. I run a Macbook Pro because I can and I like what they offer. I could buy a cheaper PC laptop but I would be compromising in some form or other. Of course the rabid anti-Apple zealots will just call me a fanboi or worse. Shame that.

I've had one of the original unibody Macbooks for almost 3 years now, and as the review says, this is more of the same, but mildly tweaked, and trailing the technology curve in typical apple fashion. But I've been looking to see what might be a good replacement (because Macs for science use are poor for productivity and a dead end for specialist software - fanbois, make of that what you will). And This hasn't exactly been a paragon of reliability or stability either, needing a new MoBo and the OS reinstalling every 12 months or less to remain stable and quick.

In terms of hardware, as people have noted, I can get a similar or more powerful PC for about half the price, and there's a good chance that, running windows, it won't get bogged down the way the Macbook does if I have, say, 6 spreadsheets and a couple of word documents open at the same time. But the things that the Macbook does well is that it is small and light enough to carry acceptably, that 13" screen is 1280 X 1024, which means that you can do real work even if you have to squint hard, and the trackpad makes mouseless working tolerable (even though it causes cramp after a couple of hours). And the case is very very nice, and probably the best single feature of the hardware.

So I have a real conundrum - do I replace it with something cheaper running a more useful OS in slightly sub-optimal hardware, or do I go for shiny with the iffy Apple OS (now even iffier with Lion)?

One more thing.

On that £990 price, you need to add 3 years Applecare warranty (essential, I'd say, considering the poor reliability of Apple hardware) if you have any expectations of using the machine for work. You're looking at a realistic starting price of £1300, which is a real professional price, regardless of hardware and OS. That suddenly makes a Dell, top end Acer or Lenovo look a lot more attractive.

What, and you'd rather have a Dell dumbo replace your Motherboard every 6 months?

Look people. The tiresome old PC vs Mac will live on until the geek crowd let go of their need for control. I was never a fan of Apple until I used them. I just get the sense the antiApple crowd do it because it looks cool. No it does not. Take a slice of realism and no non-sense approach here.

I personally would rather pay for quality products in any sector. Especially when you look at several hundreds of pounds,

I had a top of the range Dell XPS 13" laptop. Great design that could of taken Dell into a different market and catchup with Apple's appreciation for design and simplicity. The bigget flaw with it though? A flawed motherboard. These just had a huge failure with the design, especially the GPU overheating even under normal use. All I got was replacement refurbed motherboards that had the same flaw every time. I ended up selling it to some gullible fellow with xtea warranty so they didn't get stuck.

I then turned to Apple and my MacBook of the same nature of this one from almost 3 years ago is still running smoothly, no major issues, upgraded the RAM for 30 quid and should last me another 3. How many Dell's, HP's etc end up on the scrap heap after 1-2 years because of poor design? Loads and I've seen my fair share as a school technician.