Apple 17in Macbook Pro laptop

It isn’t easy to make a bulky 17in laptop look elegant, but Apple’s design team has made a good attempt with this update of its top-of-the range Macbook Pro.

Apple has done all it can to make the traditionally bulky 17in form factor appear as streamlined as possible. The chassis is moulded from a single sheet of aluminium, with virtually no joints or seams to mar the minimalist appearance.

There isn’t even a metal bezel around the edges of the screen, so all you see when you turn it on is the finely detailed and colourful 1,920x1,200 display, surrounded by a thin border. When you fold the screen shut, the entire unit measures just 2.5cm thick.

However, the real achievement is how Apple has managed to cram so much inside this thin chassis. Priced at £1,949, the laptop has a 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo processor, accompanied by 4GB of DDR3 memory and a 320GB hard disk. If you need some extra performance, there’s an option to increase the processor speed to 2.93GHz for an extra £210. As with its 15in counterpart ­ launched back in October ­ this 17in model now includes two separate graphics processors.

There’s an integrated Nvidia Geforce 9400M that shares 256MB of the system’s main memory, as well as a Geforce 9600M GT processor that has 512MB of its own dedicated video memory. You can use the less powerful 9400M to maximise battery life when running office applications or browsing the web, and then switch to the more powerful 9600M GT when you need extra performance in games or for demanding video and graphics work. You don’t even have to shut the machine down to switch between the two graphics processors ­ either choose ‘better battery’ or ‘better performance’ from the Mac’s control panel and then log off for a few seconds to allow the handover to take place.

Apple says that the 9600M GT is twice as fast as the 9400M when running 3D games, and our tests confirmed this. Doom 3 leapt from 64 frames per second using the 9400M up to 115 with the 9600M GT. Admittedly, the Mac games market appears to be dying out so we aren’t suggesting this is an alternative to PC gaming laptops, but that level of graphics performance will appeal to Apple’s creative users in areas such as video editing and animation.

Apple admits that using the 9600M GT can cut up to an hour from the battery life, but here is an area where the new 17in Macbook Pro takes a giant leap forward. The battery in this model is sealed into the base of the unit, so you don’t have the option to remove and replace it with a spare battery to extend the battery life. That might seem short-sighted, but Apple claims that its new battery can last for up to eight hours.

We measured around four and a half hours when playing DVD discs on the optical drive, and six and a half hours when using the computer for nothing but routine word processing and web browsing. That’s still better than any other Apple notebook we’ve tested in the past, and enough to give many PC notebooks a run for their money too.

Other features include a built-in webcam and wireless networking with support for both 802.11n and Bluetooth 2.1. There are three USB2 ports, as well as a high-speed Firewire 800 connector and a slot for Express Card upgrades. A Displayport interface allows you to connect the laptop to one of Apple’s (very expensive) Cinema monitors, but if you would prefer to connect it to a conventional DVI or VGA monitor you’ll have to pay an extra £20 for a suitable adapter. Apple includes a copy of its iLife software suite, although the professional user will almost certainly be using more advanced programs such as Apple’s own Final Cut video editor.

The Macbook Pro is an impressive computer and the improvement in battery life is astonishing. However, it’s extremely expensive ­ even by the standards of 17in laptops ­ so it can only be recommended for professional users in fields such as video editing, who can justify the cost of such a powerful desktop replacement.