March 6 (Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc.'s latest MacBook Pro laptop offers some compelling reasons for a Windows PC user to switch to a Mac. It's fast, elegantly designed, simple and a pleasure to use.

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, updated its MacBook and MacBook Pro series of laptops with faster and more capable components last week. The $2,799 top-of-the-line MacBook Pro I tested uses some of the most powerful pieces of notebook hardware available. I don't even have to give up using Windows, since I can run both Windows and Mac operating systems on the same Apple notebook.

It's equipped with Intel Corp.'s 2.5-gigahertz Penryn-based Core 2 Duo processor, which can be upgraded to a 2.6 GHz version, and Nvidia Corp.'s GeForce 8600M GT graphics chip. The graphics processor is carried over from the previous MacBook Pros. Apple increased the hard drive capacity to 250 gigabytes, and users can upgrade to 300 GB. The standard memory is 2 gigabytes, expandable to 4 GB.

All these components put together give you an ultimate workhorse. The speed boost will primarily benefit people who work on high-end graphics, video, photography and anything else that deals with rendering enormous amounts of pixels and polygons. For most office and home users who perform usual tasks -- word processing, e-mail, Web browsing and playing music -- the powerful hardware is nice, but not essential.

`Peppy' Multitasking

The 6.8-pound, 1-inch thick MacBook Pro felt peppy in the applications I used, including a trial version of Apple's iWork office suite; iPhoto, a program for organizing and editing digital photos; iTunes, for managing your digital music library; and the Safari browser for surfing the Web.

It did a good job of multitasking, allowing me to easily toggle between programs. My video chat experience on Skype (which I downloaded to the test unit) was also positive. The picture quality during the call was mostly smooth and the sound was clear on both incoming and outgoing videos. Like Apple's other recent MacBooks, this laptop has a built-in webcam above the screen.

Watching a DVD movie on the widescreen format of the MacBook Pro's 17-inch, 1680-by-1050-pixel display was a nice perk. But the screen quality wasn't sharp enough for movie- watching, and text and graphics looked a bit soft around the edges.

Apple offers a higher resolution, 1920-by-1200-pixel screen, which should make images look better. The display is also LED backlit -- it doesn't use mercury like typical screens do, making it better for the environment, Apple says. The screen costs an extra $100.

Battery Life

The battery lasted only 2 hours and 33 minutes in my test (I played a DVD movie until the battery was depleted). Apple says the battery should last for up to 4.5 hours with basic use such as browsing the Web over a wireless connection.

Typically, systems with high-end components tend to build up heat and make the fans churn loudly. The MacBook Pro is relatively quiet, with minimal fan noise. The bottom of the laptop got a bit warm at times, especially when I had it plugged in to a power outlet.

The new MacBook Pros now feature the Multi-Touch trackpad previously found only on the MacBook Air, incorporating Multi- Touch technology from the iPhone and the iPod Touch. I find touch-based controls inventive and they can get addictive, though the gestures on the laptops do require some training.

Multi-Touch

I tapped one finger on the trackpad to click or drag. I swiped two fingers to scroll through a page. With a pinching gesture, I expanded the size of a page or zoomed in and out of a photo. Using two fingers, I was able to rotate an image in iPhoto. To go through a photo album or go back and forward on previously visited pages of a Web site, I swiped three fingers on the trackpad.

After I got the hang of it, Multi-Touch was generally entertaining to use, thanks in part to Apple's smartly designed and easy-to-use Mac OS X Leopard operating system.

The MacBook Pro's other features are standard fare, including 802.11n Wi-Fi, a DVD burner, three USB ports, two FireWire ports for speedy digital video transfers, an Ethernet port, an ExpressCard/34 slot for an add-in cellular broadband card, Bluetooth, headphone jack, audio-in port and a DVI port for an external monitor.

In addition to iPhoto, iTunes and the Safari browser, Apple computers come with software for making movies and DVDs, designing Web sites and composing music.

Incremental Improvement

Microsoft Corp.'s Office suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage e-mail) doesn't come standard on MacBooks; it's an added expense, starting at about $130 on Amazon.com.

All in all, this new high-end MacBook Pro is an incremental improvement over the previous version. The enhanced speed will matter most to graphics and video pros. The Multi-Touch feature is a step in the right direction, though I'd like to see Apple up the ante a bit more by offering Pro series notebooks with a Solid State Drive (which can yield even faster overall performance), a Blu-ray DVD drive, an HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface) port and built-in cellular modem.

Apple MacBook Pro, with 2.5 GHz processor and 17-inch screen $2,799 Rating: 8/10 http://www.apple.com

Apple also offers 15-inch models of the MacBook Pro, starting at $1,999.

(Grace Aquino is a columnist for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are her own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Grace Aquino at aquinograce@gmail.com

Last Updated: March 6, 2008 00:12 EST