Macbook pro 15 inch or 17 inch?

The scotch, or the refurbished unit?

steve359, greetings; Yes, I did leave myself open for that. You are awarded two blue stars.

Ciao

Heh heh, methinks Sir Ogelthorpe may not get much work done after the purchase, but he will have a grand time doing it... 😝😀

A couple or three points.

1. I have both the 2010 17 and the 2011 15 inch macbook pros. I got the 17 for the mac-mad fiancee. And the 15 for the now mac-mad me. We have since swapped since she needed a more portable machine. As OGELTHORPE mentioned, both sized machines can be configures the same way, spec-wise, so performance will be equivalent, though not equal.
2. The other consideration I would like to propose is to buy a refurbished mac. Given the warranties involved, you get an essentially new machine with a significant discount.
3. Finally, in terms of resolution, I am sure you are following the press updates vis-a-vis a new 2012 15-inch MBP with retina display. I suspect this would be the perfect solution, with better than current 17-inch resolution and lighter than current 15-inch weight. The only question is can you wait till release date.

Cheers!

Wouldn't surprise me that once the new ones come out, the refurbished section will be chockful of old inventory at fire sale prices...

Lets not get carried away. We are talking about Apple. A fire sale is a 2% discount. My 15-inch 2011 MBP was a refurbished one and it was only 10% cheaper. Like an idiot, I forgot to buy it through my company which is sales tax exempt, so I ended up paying the tax. Ouch!!

Meanwhile, when the 15-inch 2012 MBP comes out, I'll want to sell/trade-in my 17-inch 2010 MBP which has been upgraded to 8gb ram, Corsair Force GT 120GB SSD (partitioned with Windows 7 Enterprise x64 - 50/50 partition) and also had the optical drive replaced with a second HDD - 500GB. The optical drive is now an external usb drive. I can always replace it internally. Would anyone have any idea how much this would be worth?

okayson, greetings: Go to EBay and Craig's List and see what the competitions prices are like.

Be realistic. Remember everyone's daughter is the most beautiful in the world, even the ugly ones.

Ciao.

hello, you've probably already bought your new Mac but I thought I'd throw in my opinion.

I've had my 2010 MBP 17" core i7 since July of 2010...and at first I regretted opting for the biggest screen, but now I am extremely glad I chose to get the 17 over the 15. although it's not as portable as most other laptops, the brilliance of the screen more than makes up for that. I work in photoshop and occasionally adobe premiere pro cs6 (or iMovie depending on the project) and I can say with absolute certainty that the 17" screen makes editing photos or HD video content astronomically better than using a lower resolution screen (my friend has a 15" MBP from 2009, and everything looks bigger and takes up more space on the screen).

since you plan on using the computer for creative projects, I highly recommend the 17", sacrificing portability for pure amazingness and raw power. get the core i7 and order some extra RAM from OWC (much cheaper than having Apple install the RAM for you). I promise you won't regret it.