Look here: new! shiny! ooo!

I'm upgrading as fast as I can in order to run a browser, an office suite and iTunes at warp speed. Other than that there's not much of anything anyone is doing with all this power. For instance Intel announced it has a 6 core processor in the works. That's gonna make one hell of a spread sheet with animated dancing bears, embedded video while I rip a DVD. Woopie.

I run a whole recording studio on my Mac. This is the first laptop that may be able to run all the stuff I use at the same time.

I love my iPhone. I mean, I really love my iPhone. But when people complain about the cost of Apple products, Farhad, this is exactly what they're talking about. $2800? That's unbelievable.

The initial cost and running costs of having a Mac are what make the jump so hard for some people, and this is a perfect example.

Yes, it's expensive, and the margins are high, but the 17 inch MBP really isn't designed as your average on the go laptop. It truly is a pro machine that is meant to run things like: On set Final Cut Pro rigs to download your P2 cards, photographers on a shoot to preview their photos/download there full cards/ figure out if that digital trick they want to do is going to work with the pose and background of the model they just shot; audio professionals running a portable digital work station etc etc.

Given those goals, the price isn't that big of a deal,

The only MBP that the average user should look at is the 15 inch base.

My new MacBook is waiting for me at the post office.

And it's already obsolete.

basically that. don't open your new computer but take it to the store or call apple and they will most likely upgrade you.

I think we are throwing out the word obsolete a bit too much. My MacBook Pro is 2 years old and I am currently using it to work from home today. I am finishing up editing a short 720p piece in FCP using just the machine and an esata drive. Now, I would hardly call my core duo MBP (a 32 bit machine btw) obsolete, so I really don't think the Macbook sitting at the post office would qualify either.

That being said, yeah, keep it in the box and trade it out.

I wish I'd read your messages before I opened the box half an hour ago. I haven't turned it on yet, but it's charging.