macbook pro 17" or ...

[sp3n]

i really want to upgrade my notebook - it is by no means a slouch (i7 q740, 4gb ddr3, geforce 350m, 3d display, bdrw+) or even has anything wrong with it, its just the size of the screen (15.6") and limited resolution (1366x768) is annoying, especially when it comes to development.
unfortunately simply just adding an external monitor is not an option as i travel around quite a bit and don't want to have to carry another monitor.

after a passing visit to a macstore yesterday - i was simply amazed by the sharpness and quality of the 17" screen on the macbook pro... i am well aware that there are other notebook manufacturers that do not carry the apple-tax and are therefore much cheaper - but is the screen quality as good?

as i am in thailand, i can pickup a brand new 2011 macbook pro 17" for around £1600, which is quite a saving on the UK price but is there any other manufacturers/models that i should be considering?

i have not been up-to-date with recent hardware changes for the past few years so some suggestions would be really appreciated...

thanks in advance

[Behemoth]

HP Envy might be worth a look if they do one with a 17 inch screen.

[sp3n]

excellent, i will go and checkout some reviews now :]

[kmac]

Also the 17" macbook pro weighs a ton

[vinnyT]

Two points to consider;

1 (con) the Mac BP 17" does (as Kmac notes) weigh rather a lot and is can be differ cult to manoeuvre in crowded or confined spaces.

2 (pro) the Apple aftercare, whilst costing extra is fantastic, no matter where you are in the world, if you can get to an Apple store, they will bend over backwards to help you. Apple is the only co. that I will buy an extended warranty from.

[Pancake]

Thinkpad any day, and you can get full 1080p on a 15" screen, and they are far more solid than a Macbook and can take much more damage, the is better as often you qualify for free upgrade to 3yr onsite when ordering from the Lenovo site.

[Behemoth]

May also be worth having a look at an Asus laptop, have seen some metal body ones recently and they seem quite sturdy.

[sp3n]

thank you all for recommendations/advice

after reading reviews and inspecting many laptops in person... i have decided to go for the macbook pro.
mainly because i have seen no other laptop with the same quality screen, now is a good a time as any to learn how to use osx, a very high quality build compared to most other manufacturers, applecare and i can buy this a quite a significant discount over here in bangkok.

the only thing holding me back from ordering is that i am undecided on ssd, does it really make a big difference? also if i was to go for ssd, i dont know whether to order it as part of the laptop from apple with a very high price (as with their memory prices) or go for a thirdparty ssd and fit it myself. but i dont know if this second option will invalidate my warranty/applecare?

128gb seems very small so i think it would have to be at least 256gb and i would probably have to go for this optibay solution that i have been reading about which lets you replace the dvd drive with a 2.5" hard drive

but i just dont know if it is worth the extra cost?

[BerZerk]

Wise choice with the MBP 17". It has 1920x1200 resolution. I got the MBP 15.4" 1680x1080 anti-glare

ps. replacing the internal HDD with an fast 128GB SSD and then the superdrive with another 1TB of HDD... You are all sorted. Once you got a SSD in your machine, I bet you will never look back at old fashion HDD anymore

[Stringent]

SSD does make a big difference in terms of speed. I have a 15" MBP and its a little sluggish even with 8GB RAM. I suspect the normal 500GB HDD might be to blame. As BerZerk said if you can do away with the optical drive, you can have an SSD for the important OS files and use the other drive for storage of music, video etc. I want an OCZ Vertex 3 in my MBP but need at least 240GB, which is like £350!