Macbook Pro 17"

[mik3cap]

Wow... Almost $6000 for the most tricked out version of the 17" MBP. That's with solid state 256GB drive, 2.93GHz processor, 8GB RAM, and all the bells and whistles and protection plans. Holy crap.

Neither Sony nor Dell has a 17" laptop model with 8GB RAM, and the most expensive ones they've got are still less than half that price. Alienware has an 8GB model that runs Vista 64-bit, and has a blu-ray drive built in, and it's still roughly $1500 cheaper. The solid state drive doesn't make much of a difference - it's the 8GB memory upgrade that massively tips over the MBP price point.

I bet that monster MBP will scream once Snow Leopard gets released.

Comments

[neuromancerzss.livejournal.com]

I haven't been looking around at computers for a while, but I remember an SSD being the difference from a "normal priced computer" and "a tech item I drool over but can't really see being worth it". Have they come down in price a bunch?

Apart from any specs though, $6,000 is way too much for a laptop. It could be a magic machine that predicts what software I want to run and does so instantaneously and I still couldn't consider $6,000 a reasonable price for a personal computer. Hopefully it comes with a gratis "I'm rich" app, perhaps turning the glowing apple into a shining gold beacon.

[mikecap.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think the maximum price point is only for the stupidly rich early adopters right now. Kind of like SUVs used to be ridiculously expensive and were status symbols. I highly doubt there will be many ultra-high-end 17" MBPs out there.

I misread the solid state drive price when I added the options - it's the 128GB that is $600, and the 256GB is $900. So that is a pretty significant up; the 256GB and the 8GB memory upgrades together bring the price up $2100. But that pretty much is the bleeding ass edge right there in terms of laptop tech.

I have to imagine that that much memory and that much disk speed coupled with the new multi-core and parallel processing features in Snow Leopard will make that a scary, scary device. But I probably wouldn't buy one until at least late 2011, when the price will hopefully sink a bit and 10.6 has some kinks worked out. So really the question is: can I live with my current laptop for two more years? I can but hope. I probably ought to buy a protective shell for it anyways, despite its "advanced age" of 15 months...

[neuromancerzss.livejournal.com]

Well, what sort of tool is your laptop to you? 8GB RAM and a hefty SSD are pretty sweet technology, but really when it comes down to it for me, laptops are about comfortable semi-portable computing, not power.

Even if you could get all that stuff for a more standard $2k, if it weighed 12 lbs and could fry eggs with the heat output it wouldn't actually be a good piece of technology (for me). I can code just fine on my 4 lb laptop, and when I'm watching something from a distance of my lap the display inches just don't seem to have much effect. Games are the only thing where I worry it doesn't quite have the juice, but I'm not really the type to be running cutting edge games anyway.

[mikecap.livejournal.com]

I like having the ability to do large scale graphics and video things too, horsepower and disk speed are good for that kind of stuff. But you're absolutely right, laptops are as much about comfort and form factor as anything else.