I love Apple and their products, but this one is WAAAAAY overpriced. I have one of the first models of the 17" macbook pro, and at the time, it was about $200 more than equivalent pc's. That is a premium that was well worth it. That was June 2007.

This is early 2009, and I can buy an equivalent PC for about $1200-$1600. Plus, from what I understand, I can only update the memory using Apple (which is 30% higher than Crucial...where I usually get my memory).

Hopefully the price will drop to $2100 sooon

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=pcat17080&type=page&qp=crootcategoryid##-1##-1~~q70726f63657373696e6774696d653a3e313930302d30312d3031~~cabcat0500000##0##11a~~cabcat0502000##0##o~~nf534||31372671756f743b20616e64205570&list=y&nrp=15&sc=abComputerSP&sp=+brand skuid&usc=abcat0500000

Yes you can buy a PC for about $1200-1600. No it is not an equivalent PC, it is a second tier machine. Go to Dell and check some prices. An equivalent PC runs about $2869 AFTER discount.

XPSM1730
2.8GHZ (only speed available, fits between the choices offered by Apple)
Vista Ultimate
RAM maxed out at 4GB
No LED screen
Bluetooth

Memory. Apple has been using standard RAM for more than a decade now. You don't have to purchase it from Apple. Go to Newegg.com or Ramseeker.com and find some significantly less expensive RAM. Same goes for the HDD.

And yet, if you have the desire for a 17" computer, you can only get Apple's at $2700. Wow, check out how many you can get at Dell. And for less than a $1000 as well.

It might not be 'equivalent', but the MBP might be overkill for what you need as well.

It's too bad Apple can't figure out how to take the three shells, and mix and match them with three or four different motherboards to allow, say, a MacBook innards in a 17", or a MBP's innards in a 13".

But, no, only Dell, HP, Acer, etc, have that capability.

I guess if Apple could get the market share of these companies, they'd be able to make their product lines more flexible.

I agree with you that you that there are fewer options available at Apple (more than anything, with all that real estate, I would REALLY like a numeric keypad on the 17"!), as long as we realize that apples to apples, Apples and Dells cost about the same, Dell just carries bananas and oranges too.

Wymer,

I believe with the unibody construction, the user cannot access the memory, thus the only way to upgrade memory is via Apple.

The problem with including a dedicated number pad are two-fold: the trackpad would have to be repositioned to be off center, and the market is probably 1% of miniscule. USB num pads are available, and make a lot more sense.

dynsight,

Not true. The hard disk and memory slots are accessible once you remove the bottom cover, just as with the 15" MacBook Pro models.