January 2009 Update: the new unibody MBP 17" has been ordered! :-)

So here it is: my first Intel-based Powerbook -- erm, sorry: MacBook Pro! I hesitated for a good half year and skipped the first Intel revision of the MacBook Pro... not being sure if I was ready for all the hazzle of switching the CPU platform. But in November 2006, pretty much exactly one year after I got the latest G4 Powerbook, I dared...

And I was blown away! The switch of CPU architectures was absolutely seamless - just impossible to notice! All the software ran without any hick-up from day one, no exception. If you understand just a little bit of the technological challenges behind switching the CPU architecture, this alone is worth standing ovations! And now that most applications are Universal Binaries (meaning: being Intel-native), the new MacBook plays its full power.

After my two Titanium Powerbooks with 400MHz and 800MHz, this is now the 3rd aluminum Powerbook (slash MacBook Pro) I got... following a first-revision 17" Powerbook with 1GHz and the latest 1.67 GHz 17-inch model. What has remained is one of the most spectacular displays ever to grace a notebook computer: a high definition 16:10 wide screen with 1680x1050 resolution. That's the screen real estate I used to have on my 20" Cinema Display a few years back! And, of course, the miraculous design and the heavenly material you just never want to take your fingers off! Call me crazy, but this aluminum alloy enclosure is so beautiful and smooth -- it's a "must touch"! And it's more than just pretty: it's lightweight and extremely durable. I actually happened to drop my first 17" Powerbook on concrete from about 1 meter of height... aside from a barely noticeable little dent: no damage whatsoever!

And the MacBook Pro got better. It's wicked fast, fully loaded (now even with a built-in iSight, very practical!) and - hold your breath - Windows compatible! I really can't imagine why anybody would ever want to run Windows, but you can if you need to...

Ok, I could go on forever talking about Mac OS X being the most intuitive and most advanced operating system you can get for any computer, and so on. But after all, it comes down to one simple observation: I've now used Apple's 17" aluminum notebooks for about 4 years, basically each and every day, in the office, at home, in my spare time, for work, for fun, for development, for entertainment, for everything! This machine is hardly ever switched off. And I love this machine! This sleek little wonder is just everything you could ever want a notebook to be. It indeed is the ultimate notebook computer -- nothing comes close. It's worth every single penny, and it was the best investment into any computer hardware I've ever made so far (and I've made quite some).