If I hadn’t already bought this thing, I’d do it now. I like it a lot. It’s lightweight, has excellent battery life (4 hours: the best my Thinkpad ever got was about 90 minutes and now it’s down to about 20), is totally silent with no fan and a well-insulated hard drive. The screen is clear and bright.
The fit and finish aren’t quite what I found on the Thinkpad, but at about 1/3 the price (unfair, since the ‘pad is three years old), I can deal with it. It just doesn’t feel as solid (of course, it also doesn’t weigh almost 8 pounds). The trackpad seems to go haywire periodically, making the pointer jump to the top of the screen and stay there. On the other hand, I’m sitting 8 feet away from the Thinkpad and it’s amazing how much noise it makes, just accessing the drive periodically. I miss the pointer mouse thingie, but the trackpad is becoming more comfortable when it works (perhaps a visit to the Genius Bar at my local Apple Store on Monday is in order). And of course the additional mouse buttons would be nice.
Trying to find something this full-featured in the Intel world at this price point would be a challenge, I’m sure. I don’t even know if you can get FireWire on Intel laptops, and I have built-in 10/100 Ethernet, a modem, and 2 USB ports as well as the AirPort Extreme card.
The out of the box experience is where these really shine: from unpacking to using the system is a matter of 10 minutes, and the instructions are still sealed in their packing materials.