[antiRepublicrat]

y only beef is that I think the 5.5 hours of use off a battery charge is kind of a fantasy. In real world use I would expect much less time. My G4 17 inch Powerbook can't even play a movie from beginning to end

Battery life is like gas mileage -- not absolutely realistic but good for comparison. The normal benchmarks count the fact that for most average use a computer is waiting for the user, so the processor can go into a low-power state (and CoreDuo has excellent low-power management). Running video takes a lot of constant processing power and disk access, so it drains the battery very fast.

Having a lot of RAM on your machine for cache vastly increase your battery life. In fact, there's a Windows program out there that caches DVD playing to improve battery life.

BTW, for this comparison, Apple's standard battery has more watt/hours than Dell's standard, but less than Dell's $79 upgrade battery.

Another plus forgotten for Apple: Its CD/DVD drive is slot-loading.

[jalisco555]

All true, of course, but it is annoying to have to swap a battery on a plane just to finish watching a movie. That being said, I'll be looking at one of these beauties in about a year.