17" Macbook Pro Early 2008 model

by Graeme Nimmo
(Scotland)

I got one of the first generation 17" Unibody Macbook Pros and absolutely love it. As a mac, it is a brilliant for doing my university coursework on, coding in a *nix environment is a much better experience for me than my earlier attempts at developing in windows.

The provided Xcode software that comes with every Apple computer is absolutely brilliant, meaning that there is no need to hunt around for a suitable compiler as all of the commonly used ones are available.

The build of the laptop itself is excellent, very sturdy, very reliable and quite importantly as well, the looks are absolutely brilliant as well.

The hardware that the laptop contains is of a very high standard, the graphics card that is used is still very effective at playing most recently released games, maybe not on maximum settings, but there isn't a recent game that the laptop hasn't coped well with.

The keyboard and trackpad are great for extended hours of working at a laptop.

In my time with this laptop, I have had a few minor issues. The first was that some of the keys on my keyboard were not seated properly and would not pop back up after being pressed, but this was solved by taking a trip to a nearby Apple Genius Bar and having them reseat the keys. I also had some minor issues with my built-in microphone, it seems to make loud crackling noises when the sensitivity is set too low, this has not (yet) been reported as I tend not to use the microphone, or when I do, I use a bluetooth headset. The third issue I had was not really with the laptop itself, the charger started to show signs of wear and tear when the cable at the transformer started to pull away and was exposing some electrical cabling beneath, even though I have the extended apple care I was told that since this was such a dangerous fault this would have been resolved even if I didn't, which is nice as often companies would use that as an excuse to squeeze the £80 for a new charger out of a concerned and scared customer.

Even with these three issues I have had, they have not lessened my opinion of apple as a laptop manufacturer. I would happily purchase a new Macbook pro, possibly a 15" rather than the larger 17" one, just for the added portability that it would offer.