I agree that the screen difference is night and day. I do not believe that you can see it in the apple stores as much, but the closest thing you can do is to hurry up and go now to the stores where they likely haven't changed the display models yet. Check out that and the macbook air screens and you will have an idea.
But it's the dark scenes and videos and viewing angles that will most dramatically bring out the differences.
I must disagree.
EVERY review I've read so far has stated that the Pro 13inch screen is VASTLY superior to the Oct 08 MacBook 13inch unibody (non-pro).
Exaggerated.
If you look at the new MacBook Pro screen, there's something about it that's almost "contrived".
1) The colours pop, but it's an imbalanced pop. The greens and yellows look awesome, until you start to look at photos and websites, they look too "fluorescent". So fluoro that they look unrealistic. As a prime example, you go to the Apple webpage to view the iPod nanos, and the first thing I thought was, they don't look like that in real life! The blue one especially looked way too light. But on my unibody 13inch it looks closer to the real thing. Actually on my one the colours look just right.
On the pro I tried meddling with the colour settings but no do. Maybe it's my eyes.
2) I notice the screen brightness is different on the pro and non-pro. Eg, when you decrease brightness on the Pro, it decreases quite significantly on every bar. By the time you get to the bar just under half-way, the screen is really dark. By the 2nd last bar, the screen is so dark you can hardly see anything. On my macbook it's more gradual. At the same half-way mark the screen is still comfortable, and at the 2nd last bar it has decreased sufficiently, but not blackish like the Pros. And they were observed under the same white fluroscent ceiling lights. I prefer the non-pro because it makes each graduation, especially at the upper end, still useful. With the pro, it seemed like I would never use the settings half-way below, because the screen is way too dark?
3) There seems to be a lot more "blurring" with screen fonts. They don't look as sharp as on the non-pro?
4) I'll admit, the good things about this screen are the blacks, they are slightly blacker than the non-pro, but not starkly different at all, and the vertical viewing angle is improved. But that's nothing a bit of physical screen adjustment can't fix.
That's my 2 cents. Please don't get me wrong, this is not buyer's envy (or whatever they call it), cos I can swap to the Pro easily if I wanted to (which was my intention when they first came out!) but of course, I did further investigation.
The SD slot I'm not too fussed about. Being a non-frequent user, happy to use a USB adapter. And as for battery, there is one GREAT advantage having a swappable model - if you go camping or travelling or backpacking or out doing community work, etc and there may be long distances between powerpoints, you can double battery life by having a spare in your bag. Sure, minor inconvenience having to power off, but that's minor compared to running out of battery with no spare. I think this is a good consideration for those who travel a lot.
I suggest you guys really deep on this issues go check out the new pros yourself. It may all be subjective.