The biggest, most heavily advertised, new feature in these laptop batteries is the battery: the MacBooks feature the "longest-lasting Mac notebook battery ever," lasting up to 8 hours. I contend that, for the rest of us, the MacBook Pro's extended battery life is of trivial concern and, given the trade-offs involved, probably not worth the effort or expense. In the end, I wouldn't be surprised to find that a majority of MacBook and MacBook Pro users have never depended on their laptop's battery long enough for it to run out of power. For these users, the new battery in the 17" MacBook Pro is almost irrelevant. But not about the battery in a 17" MacBook Pro. Much more likely, you'll see them with a 13" MacBook -- a model that doesn't have (and probably won't ever have) the battery now in the 17" MacBook Pro. Next, consider that the duration of a battery's charge gradually declines as the battery is used and recharged. Many people don't buy a replacement battery until the charge duration has declined to much much less than what it was when new. If and when you do finally decide to replace a dying battery, the new 17" MacBook Pro introduces a new hurdle: You can't replace it yourself. That's why I much prefer being able to simply buy a new battery and replace it myself, as I can do with all the other MacBook and MacBook Pro models. Last I checked, I could get an Apple-brand battery for my 15" MacBook Pro for less than $60 at Amazon.com. I don't expect to ever see a similar price for installing a new battery in a 17" MacBook Pro. Lastly, after installing a new a do-it-yourself replaceable battery, you still have the old battery as a backup. You could, for example, continue to use the old battery for those times when the laptop will primarily remain connected to an outlet, saving the new battery for when you really need it. There is no option to do this with the non-removable battery in the 17" MacBook Pro. To sum up, most Mac laptop users have little or no need for an 8 hour non-removable battery, especially one that costs more and is more of a hassle to replace than the alternatives -- and is only available with the jumbo-sized 17" MacBook Pro model. I find it a little weird that one justification for a "who cares" attitude is that most people plug it in all the time and don't bother to change the battery even after its life gets down to 15 Min (my sister is one of those), but you then use the lack of ability to easily swap out the battery as another "who cares" justification. the 17in is not my cup of tea, but if they've got a 7-8hr battery in the 15in MBP when I plan to upgrade next (in 18 months or so), I'll be happy with the extra 3 hours of battery and fine with swapping out the HD myself when that becomes necessary 3-5 years after that when the warantee has worn out and I don't have to worry about violating it. Yes there are people who need long battery life and/or a number of batteries to take along. If you are in a power blackout situation and can't charge anything your 8 hour battery is going to run out a few hours after a five hour battery. I have more juice when i have two charged battery's with me, then when i have the 8 hours battery wich will drop down to 6h in the first year. Given how many people don't use a laptop in a way that makes use of the extra time, and given the added costs and hassles involved with the new battery, I felt the Pro's much-less-than-48 hour battery wasn't worth the cost. Yes, most people do not sit in Starbucks for 8 hours, but again, were talking about the behavior of big city dwellers, who may have multiple situations during the day which require them to run on battery power:.these do add up! I don't need a 17" laptop, but Apple will most likely bring this new battery technology to their 15" models, and this would be a real boon to me, and my laptop-toting brethren. Then you gripe about not being able to remove the battery in order to replace it which implies that the battery DOES matter. I've owned at least 4 or 5 PowerBooks/MacBooks (as well as a few Windows laptops for work) and have NEVER replaced a battery in any of them, nor do I know of anyone who ever has, so I think that battery replacement is a bogus argument for the vast majority of people. I have no doubt there are a lot of people who prefer a removable one, but given Apple's claim to the 17" battery life span, I would wager that it be more likely Apple would discontinue support for it long before most users would need a replacement. As other people have pointed out, the people that would care about removable batteries are the same that would care about an 8-hour battery. To be tautological, if you care about batteries, you care about batteries. Regarding the cost of replacement: According to Apple, the 8-hour battery can be recharged 1,000 times, compared to 200 to 300 times for a typical battery. The point of my article was that, for this particular battery in this particular MacBook Pro, the benefits don't outweigh the costs. Is longer battery life a draw to people in the 17" portable market - that is the question to answer, and I'd say that the longer battery life certainly does nothing to hurt. A set of 13" MacBooks with a non-removable battery with an 8 hour life would certainly be an item worth a serious look over a 13" MacBook with a 5 hour removable battery. After a year, the Acer's battery was dead and the cost of replacing it was about half the price of the laptop.