(This review first appeared on MacCreate.com)

Photographers and other creatives have increasingly come to rely on notebook computers as their main machine, and with good reason. As technology improves it becomes increasingly possible to shoehorn the same processors and RAM into a laptop as into all but the most high-end desktops, and the flexibility of working with a portable computer can't be beat.

Laptops from Apple have long pushed the technological envelope with the company's notebook computers often setting the standard in industrial design and functionality.

The newest line of MacBook Pros is no exception, especially the 17-inch model we recently tested which once again sets the standard for notebook performance. For location photographers and videographers the 17-inch MacBook Pro might be the most perfect laptop yet with a return to an anti-gloss screen and an increased color gamut that creatives have been clamoring for.

Overhauled
The new MacBook Pro is a completely redesigned model that is not only sleeker and sexier than the previous generations but faster and more powerful to boot. It features a new integrated battery (more on that in a bit) that gets a claimed eight-hours of runtime and features dual graphics systems, allowing the user to switch between a more powerful chip for the fastest processing and a lower-power chip for longest runtime. It has fewer environmental contaminants and operates with less power than previous models.

We put the 17-inch MacBook Pro to the test during a full week of in-house and on-location shooting and really put the system through its paces in a full-on production environment to see if it could actually replace our desktop production systems.

Under and Over the Hood
The new Macbook Pro 17-inch model uses the same unibody construction of the previously released 13 and 15-inch models, that is to say the entire system is carved from a single block of aluminum. This allows the body to be thin and rounded without sacrificing structural solidity. In use this translates to a low weight (6.6 lbs.) but incredibly durable feel—there's no keyboard flex or other movement in the chassis.

As with the other MacBook unibody models in the lineup, the trackpad has an integrated button, a clickable surface that recognizes gestures in a similar fashion to the iPhone, though in our tests it was slightly less successful than the iPhone due to software implementation.

In one of the lingering complaints we have with Apple's whole family of gesture-based notebooks, we found that many of the programs that recognize gestures exaggerate the movement or unexpectedly react to what is not actually a full gesture. Safari 4, for example, is particularly prone to over-zealous zooming due to what it thinks are fingers moving apart (the gesture to zoom) but is usually just a scrolling gesture. As this is software based though, it's not a huge issue as it'll be worked out independently of the hardware.

Better Battery Life (With Some Limitations)
Flip the unit over and you'll notice there's no battery compartment—that's because the new 17-inch Macbook Pro has an integrated battery that gets a claimed eight hours of runtime when doing what I like to call the Facebook Test, browsing, chatting and sending emails. These runtime numbers though are for the lower-power graphics processor, the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M and the battery runtime decreases when using the more beefy NVIDIA 9600M GT "discrete" graphics processor.

In testing the unit we found the eight-hour claim to be pretty spot-on, with a bit over seven hours of life while surfing the web and doing some light Aperture work. (Aperture is more processor-intensive than the simple web-browsing test.) When utilizing the 9600M processor we got significantly lower life (around four hours) because of both the greater demands on the graphics card and because of the increased processor and hard drive use when doing the type of work that is befitting of the faster processor.

Apple is very proud of this battery, the fact that it is the "longest-lasting Mac notebook battery ever," is something they like to tout as is the fact that the 1000 charge-cycle lifespan gives the battery an estimated five-year life, which reduces landfill wastes. Apple will also recycle used batteries either as part of any replacement of the internal battery or when upgrading machines.

The reason the battery is non-removable is (according to Apple's keynote presentation on the new machines) is that the space needed for the battery-changing mechanism is better spent on a larger battery thereby increasing the life span of the system. In theory, that's great, but in practice that means that without a power cord an on-location photographer is limited to eight hours or less run time.

In a system with an interchangeable battery one could simply switch out with a freshly charged replacement, but that's not possible with the 17-inch. Worse, the power cord that Apple uses for charging has a proprietary connector to it that's not being licensed by Apple. As a result, there are almost no third-party external battery systems for the MacBook or MacBook Pro (and the ones that are available require the manufacturer to splice a MagSafe connector onto their product), which makes it harder to use when away from a power supply than need-be.

In other words, with the MacBook Pro 17-inch you now have one of the most powerful portable computers ever, with the most powerful graphics processor and the longest-lasting battery ever in a Mac. You just don't have a way to keep working once your transcontinental flight reaches Iceland. Run the 9600M graphics processor and work on images in Aperture and now you've got an on-location computer that doesn't go past four or five hours.

Fortunately the battery, as mentioned, lasts significantly longer than previous models (our 17-Inch MacBook Pro from the generation prior to the Unibody models for example get about four hours on a charge) so for many users this issue will come out in the wash but it's something to think about if the notebook is destined to be used more than an extension-cord away from an AC outlet.