I had the same thought process and purchased a new macbook. while i love the MBP, it is just a little to large for my taste. the build quality of the new macbook is outstanding and substantially better than the last gen MBP in almost every respect (solid frame, better keys, battery, hard drive access) ...EXCEPT for the DISPLAY. the viewing angle on the macbook screen was a deal breaker for me. i could not find a good angle no matter how much i adjusted the screen. at normal screen angles, the screen appeared slightly washed out (the blacks were not deep blacks and the colors were slightly faded...see the pics from the gizmodo review regarding the vertical angles). to make things even more frustrating, if i moved my head slightly up or down, i could see the change in the viewing angle affect the blacks and colors on the screen. if i tilted the screen all the way back, the blacks would look deeper, and the colors would pop...but the screen was at a steep angle pointing away from me. that did not seem like a workable solution. i did a side-by-side comparison to my last gen MBP, and the MBP did not have the same issues. blacks looked deep and colors looked correct on the MBP unless i moved the screen to an extreme angle. once the MBP screen was positioned correctly, the blacks and colors would remain the same even if i moved my head a few inches up or down. the viewing angle issue may not make a difference to most people, but i do a lot of photo editing and need to see the correct black level and colors. i strongly recommend doing a side-by-side comparison of the new macbook with your MBP before you make the jump. if i did not have a MBP, i may not have ever noticed the viewing angle issue. but once you see the viewing angle issue on the macbook screen, it becomes very annoying. so i give a big thumbs up to the new macbook in every area except the display. the MBP screen appears to have a wider vertical viewing angle, and if you are used to the MBP display then you may be disappointed with the macbook display.
