Apple MacBook Pro

The rest of the MacBook Pro's specification gives little cause for surprise. Storage comes courtesy of a DVD writer and 250GB hard disk, while on the wireless side of things, Draft-N goes hand in hand with Bluetooth 2.1.

Final words

Stylistically, Apple's new MacBook Pro is a success. Or at least it is until you start using it. Within minutes of extracting our box-fresh MacBook Pro from its packaging, the aluminium finish and glossy display bezel were soon covered with smudges and the tell-tale tracks of sweaty palms. It might boast model-looks, but you'll be spending much of your time buffing and polishing it if you want to retain that brand-new sparkly sheen.

The design is matched by a fine performance elsewhere, but it all comes at a daunting price. Ultraportables such as Lenovo's X200 and Sony's VGN-Z11WN/B can match the MacBook Pro's application, if not its gaming performance, and they roundly trounce it when it comes to battery life.

They can also excuse their £1,500-odd price tags by virtue of being ultraportables, whereas the 2.49kg Apple certainly can't. Essentially, as ever, you're paying a hefty premium for that Apple logo and the slick design that comes with it.

Mac users will already have put their old Macbook up on Ebay and rightly so - it marks a significant improvement on its predecessor - but given the problems we encountered with Windows Vista (poor battery life and no switchable dual graphics chipsets) we'd recommend PC users hold off a little longer before they consider taking the plunge.

Author: Sasha Muller