Marco.org

…and makes me want to buy one.

Some noteworthy points:

• The battery actually lasts 6-8 hours.
• The base 2.53 GHz, $1699 model ships with a smaller power adapter than the others (60W instead of 85W), which I believe is about the size of the 13” MacBook’s adapter.
• The SSDs are recent Samsung MLC models, which aren’t bad, but aren’t nearly as good as the Intel X25-M series.

I think my best-bang-for-the-buck pick would be to get the stock $1699 model and replace the hard drive myself with a 160 GB Intel X25-M ($619). This will yield a midsized laptop with a moderately fast CPU, an insanely fast (albeit relatively small) disk, very long battery life, moderate video performance, and the smaller power adapter for $2,318 plus tax. And since it’s a stock configuration from Apple, it can be even cheaper (and potentially tax-free if you don’t live in New York) in a few weeks when Amazon presumably stocks it.

Another good bet, if you want more raw CPU power, would be to get the highest configuration, 2.8 GHz, built-to-order to add the 128 GB Apple (Samsung) SSD for a total price of $2499. The 2.8 GHz CPU has twice the L2 cache of the lower-clocked CPUs, so it’s likely to have significantly better performance, although it will be a bit heavier with its bigger power brick, and it probably won’t manage the insane battery life of the low configuration.