Okay, so today's been my first full work day with the new unibody 15" Macbook Pro.

Pros: Everything. This may be the best laptop ever made. The screen is gorgeous, the keyboard is fantastic, the build quality is impeccable. It's also really fast.

Cons: The fucking screen hinge. Fuck.

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Who else uses their laptop flat in bed? If you're anything like me, working a majority of the hours you're awake, it's probable that you do. With a pillow under my head, I bend my knees, put the laptop-bottom-half basically vertical, and open the screen something about 30° short of 180 (that would be the screen being completely vertical as well, the whole laptop open flat with top edge pointing at the ceiling). This was right at about the maximum opening angle of the old non-unibody c2d MBPs.

Well, that worked fine on the old ones, works fine on my Toughbook, works fine on most computers. The hinge on the 15" unibody MBPs doesn't allow for this, though - it opens wide enough, but the new glass panel that makes the top half (screen part) look so cool also adds enough weight that it overpowers the hinge. If you use your computer like this, the moment the center of gravity of the screen takes an excursion past the shadow of the base... it falls down.

Solution? Lower the knees, reducing the thigh angle, reducing the keyboard angle to something less than vertical, and thus keeping the laptop screen angle ramrod straight, top edge pointed at the ceiling. This, unfortunately, moves the plane of the screen farther away from my eyes, which, to me, is now quite suboptimal.

It's annoying as fuck. There's even a petition: http://www.fixthehinge.com/

According to this blog post, the 17" unibody MBP doesn't suffer from the same problem, as its hinges are stronger, which would make sense - the screen on that thing must weigh a ton (comparatively). I have read, elsewhere, though, that the 17" does suffer from this same problem. I was going to buy one (a 17" unibody MBP, as I am simply borrowing this one at the moment) next month, but I'm going to have to get a definitive answer on this before I do.


UPDATE: Well, apparently, just tilting my knees down is insufficient... because then I'm looking up at the display from a lower angle (remember, the top edge is now parallel with the ceiling plane to keep it from falling down) and the colors are all off. The only solution, short of inserting something between the hinge and the body to keep it open, is sitting up at a sharper angle. And I'm specifically avoiding buying any pillows until the first to save having to move them. :(
-jp