The 5-hr battery life is a huge let down. For most developers, a faster CPU/GPU is just a marginal improvement. But being able to leave home without the charger and not having to look for power sockets is way more compelling.

Which is why I use a Mac, w/OS X. Compared to everything else I've ever tried, it's the only one that I've never had to worry about battery life, literally hours and hours of coding. Also, with two small kids I need to close it and open it all the time, it's practically instant on, and I can pick right back up where I left off, and that's without ever plugging it in.

I also switched back to Safari from Chrome b/c I found Chrome to be a horrendous battery drain.

As much crap as Apple's gotten recently for their software, the attention to battery life is a huge blessing. My MBP is easily worth $ for the time and convenience.

Even if my laptop would have 24h batter life, I just do not want the mental hurdle of anyway always thinking "will it end now, when was the last time it charged, how much is left". Fuck that.

Bring a cable where ever I go, never think of battery life.

btw, Dell Precision M4800 is a beast, evil mean machine, its the best computer I ever had, macbook pros are trash in comparison. The keys are so soft, so finely grooved, so silent, so evenly spaced, the screen color reproduction is best ever, and its heavy, it doesnt feel like a toy to toss around, it sticks on the desk where I put it. It has 3 mouse buttons, on two places. Who can work on a computer without middle click to paste!? To not speak of the internals, i7, 32GB ram and so on.

Highly recommend Dell Precision M4800.