I wish they would have dropped the white Macbook instead of the black one then drop the price of the black one to 999. 
I do like the new Macbooks. No mouse button will be a little weird to get use to, one less thing to break, not that those buttons really have problems with breaking because they don't. 
It will be my next laptop when I finally decide to replace my trusty 12" G4 Powerbook.

I had looked at the HP Dv5t recently. Granted it is cheaper but no LED back lighting, a PLASTIC case (yuck) and whilst not thick it is chunky. $800 bucks extra for the MBP 15" is just about worth it to me to get a classy well built solid laptop. But yes there is a small premium to pay for Apple's products against (truly) similar laptops.

My laptop has a blu ray. My laptop has a 16:9 16.4 inch gorgeous display. My laptop has a powerfull processor and a HD ready discrete video card. My laptop has 300 gb hard drive and 4 gb ram. My laptop can do all the things these crappy machines can do, and so much more. My laptop has a spacy keyboard. My laptop costs 50% less than these machines. My laptop is a SONY VAIO FW

Im liking what im hearing here on the macbook pro side, 4Gb DDR3 - Fast and less power useage, 9600GT will be brilliant for gaming and with Snow Leopard we should see a nice improvement in processing going on there LOVELY. Sleek and beautiful as well, unlike a gastly laptop aye. Not sure about the glass touchy thingamajig going on there though, looks like one of those things that just makes you want to stab a puppy trying to get the hang of it. 
But it all looks good apart from the price tag and i bet for us in the UK $2499 will equate to £2499 as well.

Just bought a loaded HP Dv5t a few months back for $1200 that compares to that first Macbook (except it doesn't have a LED back-lit LCD). That means you're paying about $799 for OSX...and we thought M$ was charging too much for Windows...

Just bought a loaded HP Dv5t a few months back for $1200 that compares to that first Macbook (except it doesn't have a LED back-lit LCD). That means you're paying about $799 for OSX...and we thought M$ was charging too much for Windows...

I really wanted either a standard blue ray drive or at least an option for one. There was a time when Apple was a leader in optical storage, but they have lagged sadly having failed to provide any path to HD content or publishing via optical disk. Will have to stick to my M1730 for a while longer.

And for that matter, what a disappointing graphics card selection. I've had dual (SLI enabled) 8700 MGT's in my m1730 for a year now. Again, it woiuld be a step back to purchase one of these sad little platforms.

Check the your specs again. The two cheaper MacBooks do NOT have Firewire 800. (nor Firewire 400 for that matter)

Event Apple using Nvidia defect VGA?

The new MacBooks do not come with FireWire ports.