I ordered my BTO 17" on 1/24, got it around 3/25, and have been playing around with it for a week or so (I didn't get to use it right away because I just got back from spring break in Taiwan...and yes, I did think about raiding CKS Airport while I was there). A few days ago a bright spot about 2x3 pixels large appeared on the LCD, and I just sent it back to Apple for repairs today, so I guess I'll write about her when she's gone. For the most part I agree with the other reviewers, though on some issues I have had different experiences.
Fit and Finish
Yes it is beautiful...supermodel beautiful...that smooth, shiny aluminum skin almost gave me an...er...nvm. The compliments people have been showering on it are well-deserved. The only glitches I can find on my unit are a tilted command key (like someone else's) and an ever so slightly larger gap on the superdrive side when the lid is closed. Frankly, though, I don't care. Just being picky.
OS X
My last two macs were the firewire PowerBook G3 (Pismo i think??) and an icebook, so OS X has always been a dog for me. I'm glad to say that it flies on the 17". Very fast and responsive. Just to test it out, though, I ran my pointer along the dock and clicked menus and what not randomly, and to my suprise there were periodic lags and skips in the responses. After playing around some more, I realized that my transitioning desktop pictures were causing the skips. So if you don't want to compromise responsiveness, don't choose changing desktop backgrounds. The pictures I was using were high res modeling shots of my girlfriend, though, so maybe regular images won't cause this. I turned them off temporarily to gauge the performance of the other apps in the review. Also, I'm sad to admit that startup time is pitifully long.
Photoshop
Perfect.
iApps
Perfect. I haven't tried burning anything yet, though.
Office
A bit laggy right after launch, but everything speeds up quickly.
Virtual PC
Contrary to what people are saying, my Virtual PC performance isn't stellar. I am running Windows 2000 Professional on 6.0 with 512 MB allocated to the PC and 16 MB allocated to VRAM, and GUI responsiveness scores a 7/10 at best. Basic tasks like clicking the Start menu and opening windows cause quite a noticeable bit of lag, and pointer movement is not entirely smooth. I use VPC mainly to run engineering apps like PSpice, MATLAB, and Max plus, and these are quite slow. Perfectly usable, but really slow. Operations that would be almost instantaneous on my P4 1.5 GHz take many seconds to complete. And since I'm a Counter-Strike addict, I just had to try it...6 or 7 fps, lol. Whoever said he got perfect frame rates in CS on VPC was smoking smoething. Pinball, on the other hand, is quite playable.
Quake 3 Arena
WOW. Almost runs perfectly smoothly at 1440x900 resolution in 32-bit color. It only skips occasionally on the more complex maps. I am really impressed. This game is absolutely gorgeous on the 17" screen. One thing, though -- the cinematics don't display correctly if you set the game resolution to 1440x900. But that's minor...not like the game had anything worth watching anyway.
WarCraft III
Given the machine's Q3 performance, I was quite disappointed when I tried War 3. The good thing is that 1440x900 resolution is supported. The bad thing is that the game skips quite a bit, and scrolling isn't that smooth. I haven't tried running it at a lower resolution or color depth, though. Maybe that would fix things up.
Accessories
Kensington StudioMouse
This is really a very solid mouse. I plugged it in and all the features worked right off the bat without the driver software, even the touch scroll (which really blows...I'd take a good old mouse wheel any day). It's comfortable and IMO the finish cannot match the PowerBook any better -- shiny silver with white trim to match the power adapter and wires. There is one issue, though. If I leave the mouse plugged in and the computer goes to sleep, upon waking it the mouse sensitivity goes way down. Unplugging it and plugging it in again solves the problem. Perhaps installing the driver software will fix this bug.
RadTech PowerSleevz
Fits like a glove, as advertised. RadTech warns that the sleeve might cause scuff marks on the LCD because it pushes the PowerBook lid entirely down, but after leaving the book in there for a day it seems ok. Time will tell.
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