Apple Thoughts: The Unibody 17-inch MacBook Pro

"Finally providing a noticeable difference between the MacBook and MacBook Pro, Apple has pushed the Pro's screen to 17 inches, its price to $2799, and thrown in a high-capacity (non-replaceable!) battery. The new Pro has the unibody aluminum build—and virtually everything else—in common with its smaller 15" brother. But now you won't have to put your fancy new notebook next to the cheaper 13" variant to see what you've paid for."

When Phil Schiller announced the new unibody 17-inch MacBook Pro, I wasn't too surprised to find out it was only an inch thick and 6.6 pounds. Apple has always impressed me with their intuitive designs, and lately they keep getting better and better making their laptops thinner and lighter.

The most shocking change to the new MacBook Pro, is the built-in, non-removable lithium polyer battery with a lifecycle 3 times longer than standard laptop batteries. Apple went out of their way to develop a new larger, custom battery that should run 8 hours and live through 1,000 charges quite easily. I look forward to getting my hands on the new MacBook Pro and seeing whether or not the new battery stands the test of time.