I just made the switch to a MBP within the last month. I need to start by saying I like what works and I don’t have much time for emotional arguments about Apple or MS.

I did a lot of research on the topic of MS dev on Mac and it seemed like a lot of people were very happy. (The other happy group seemed to be IBM/Lenovo owners). So now I am typing this comment in Office for Mac and reading your blog on a VM Fusion instance of XP(VS.NET/SQLExpress/Gallio/TortoiseSVN) on my other monitor. I’m probably not going to install Vista – just wait for 7. IIS and MVC is sort of a pain, but nothing that is making me move to Vista yet…

Before buying this I never typed a single word into a Mac. So if this experiment were going to fail I would have learned an expensive lesson.

The good:
It’s new so take it for what its worth but it runs flawlessly.
Not exclusive to MAC, but developing in VM has made life a lot easier. Having a base dev environment, being able to start a new blank slate environment, and just deleting the vm file is great – I don’t see a lot of reimaging in my future.
You can share files between host/guest.
You can run the VM across all your monitors (I used to have 3 but had some issues so down to 2)
I just started doing Ruby and some Rails stuff and apparently trying to do it on Win can have some rough spots.

Sort of bad:
The keyboard is missing (AFAIK) the End, Home keys and I’m not savvy enough to figure out a workaround on the Mac. I have an external keyboard and that works when I’m working on windows.
There is no such thing as a docking station. I’m usually at my desk in a home office, but if I want to take this into a work environment I disconnect 5 cables everytime. Apple’s suggestion for a “Docking Station” is an $800-900 external monitor that has a port replicator built in… arghhh
You cannot VM an Apple Desktop OS (OSX) because of licensing (You can with their server products however).
Sharing graphics files between Win VM and Apple will doesn’t work so well.

BTW – I got mine online at MacMall and the experience was great. Ordered it at 8 MST and got it at 3 the next day ($28 shipping/no taxes). They had a special on MS Office for Mac for $49 all well worth it.

Overall, it’s working out great. Windows runs smooth and won’t get to crufty – otherwise I’ll just throw it away and start a new one…

No crashes that I can remember…

@Matt.. AWESOME! Thanks for the thought-out review. I just went and "customized" my choice of MBP at Apple.com and it priced at $5200 (ouch). Will have to check out MacMall and see if I can live with a lower-priced configuration.
Thanks again!
~Lee

Can't get past the price tag. Can build a smoking Dell, even using their bloated upgrade pricing for about 30-40% less than an Apple. I'd like a Mac for the quality of their monitors alone, but the price is just too much.

#Dell Studio XPS 16"
#Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9550 (6MB cache/2.66GHz/1066Mhz FSB)
#Edge-to-Edge FullHD Widescreen 16.0 inch RGBLED LCD (1920x1080) W/2.0 MP
#8GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1067MHz (2 Dimms)
#128GB Solid State Drive
#ATI Mobility RADEON® HD 3670 - 512MB
+other minor upgrades
$2644

# 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
# 8GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2X4GB
# 128GB Solid State Drive
# SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
# MacBook Pro 17-inch Hi-Resolution Antiglare Widescreen Display
#NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 512MB
+ no other upgrades
$4,149.00

That's a $1505 difference! Is an Apple $1.5k better than a Dell? I'm not trying to be argumentative, but *seriously* $1500 smackaroos?!

This was really interesting and taught me one things or two.