The Macbook Pro is one of the finest pieces of computer equipment made. I really loved it's performance and especially loved it's spectacularly bright anti glare screen that was installed on my Macbook Pro. However based on my recent experience there is no way I would recommend anyone to buy a Macbook Pro at least at this time. Anyone in the market for a Macbook Pro should wait until Apple figures out what to do in the wake of what is obviously a serious problem with the Nvidia GPU. I recently purchased a Macbook Pro from Best Buy in June. All was well until I started using Front Row. While using Front Row, the video would stop and would be impossible to restart. Hitting buttons, pushing the pause/play on my remote, nothing seemed to work consistently. Occasionally I was able to get the video back however, it would be in a weird broken pattern with some parts showing my desktop wallpaper, some parts showing the album I was playing, other parts the lettering of the title. It was really weird. Calling Apple Technical Support initially wasn't much help, no one was consistent in theories. Some thought, software issue, others thought hardware, I did several erase and re installs, to no avail. Finally after many failures while running Front Row and a hard drive failure that resulted in the computer making a bizarre grinding noise, I returned it to Best Buy and they promptly gave me a replacement. I take the replacement, start using it, started using Front Row and sure enough, after a few songs, (particularly ones with long titles that are scrolling through) it crashed. O.K. this is Apple, this is the Macbook Pro, so I must be doing something wrong. Right? Well, I looked at all my applications, almost everything is Apple; Aperture, Final Cut Express, etc.etc.... I simply didn't see anything wrong on the surface.
It is now July and I happened to be vacationing in Canada (normally I live in Florida) and I decided to make an appointment at the local Genius Bar. I took my MBP in, explained everything and I was told that my computer would be checked out, and after about an hour they said that everything checked out fine and that my disk permissions needed a minor repair, but nothing really out of the ordinary. O.K. then, they suggested that I erase and install, stop doing restore from a previous backup on the new computer (in case something that i had on a previous system was screwing my new computer up) and just reinstall everything new, and just restore individual items on a "as needed" basis from my backup utility. O.K. I complied with that and after running Front Row, which I use all the time, my Macbook promptly crashed. Screen screwed up, Hard Drive showing verification failure, mouse pointer freezing, weird, weird stuff. So I call Apple technical support and I explain everything again, however, because of my serial number they see my previous problems. The tech says he believes my computer has a hardware issue, and asked if I did a clean erase and install, when I told him yes, all he did was make another appointment at the Genius Bar at the Apple store in Toronto. Went back to the Genius bar and explained everything once again, they checked it out again, and again said everything looks o.k. But they began to suspect that there was a software issue somewhere. They checked the computer again and didn't find anything wrong and said that it was most likely a software issue and not to put anything on my computer that was questionable...o.k. Anyway I go back home and erase and install again and this time I just installed a few of my Apple software programs and started them one at a time, and all seemed well except Front Row and now, all of a sudden Final Cut Express was having a hard time starting. It wasn't launcing at all! So I called Applecare and explained what was going on and all the history that I have had. So, the tech said to me that he was almost 100% sure that I am having a problem with some hardware component in my MBP. So he gave me some direction on deleting plists, and logging only into my administrator account, and he told me to always use my administrator account instead of an account with no administrator privileges, even though it goes against conventional wisdom for security reasons. He also told me to do an erase and clean install, update, and then re-install my applications and try to launch and use them again one by one to isolate any problems. I complied and my computer crashed repeatedly while launching Front Row and Final Cut Express, it was slow and things were just not right. I called Apple Care again, reported what was happening, and here is what the rep said: "It sounds like, there is a hardware issue with your computer, that comes out when you run Front Row but it seems to be having an effect on your other programs, making them unstable, let's get you back to the Genius Bar I will make notes and make sure they know what's going on" O.K. I then went back to Toronto Genius Bar again, and explained what the latest was. They simply gave me a brand new Macbook Pro. O.K. now with another new computer in hand I go home fire it up, update it, and without even putting any of my programs on, just did a backup from disk of my itunes library (music) and ran Front Row. It crashed after 5 minutes.
A few weeks prior I began hearing about the Nvidia GPU, and wasn't sure if it applied. I even mentioned it a few times to the Apple reps at the Genius bar and over the phone to the rep and no one appeared to know what I was talking about. Now after 3 MBP's I am conviced ALL MBP's with this particular GPU are bad! What will trigger their failure, or when, may be subject to debate. But they all seem to fail. I happen to listen to a lot of classical music with long titles....29 characters or so, the ones that scroll, that seems to be a big thing that triggers failure of the Nvidia GPU. I am not sure what Apple will do, I flipped my MBP on eBay at a loss and purchased a Black Macbook, I am disappointed, but really I had no choice. I would strongly recommend against purchasing a Macbook Pro at this time. I don't blame Apple for this issue, but it will be very important how they deal with this. Anyway, I just wanted to add my $.02.
