The brand new MacBook Pro has arrived and we've got unboxing pictures and impressions galore for you. Check out some pictures in the article, but don't forget to head over to the full gallery for an appearance by a special guest. 

Obsessable First Impressions

Just like on the MacBook (check out our unboxing and impressions here), the packaging is shockingly small, especially compared to the box FedEx delivers the thing in.  As someone who's opened lots Apple boxes over the years, this is by far the most streamlined packaging Apple has ever produced. This continues right on through to the inside: there's no styrofoam to be seen in this box. It's all thin plastic, paper and a thick layer of foam to protect the top of the laptop. 

Despite its relatively large footprint, the 15.4-inch MacBook Pro feels remarkably strong, probably thanks to the new unibody construction. The Pro isn't exactly a light machine, weighing 5.5 pounds, but there's no give or bending when holding the machine from one side. 

The magnetic latch is amazingly calibrated: I've played with plenty of MacBook Airs and on every one I've tried to open, I've had to hold the bottom of the machine down. Not so on the MacBook Pro. Of course it's partly due to the Pro being a lot heavier than the Air, but it takes just the right amount of effort to open the lid -- the bottom never budges and you never find yourself flinging the screen open too quickly. 

On the inside, the new trackpad is displayed prominently in front of a backlit keyboard, two finely perforated speaker grills and the black-rimmed glossy screen. The trackpad feels great: it doesn't have the same smoothness the iPhone and iPod touch do, but it feels different enough from the rest of the metal wrist rests that it's easy to figure out if your hand is in the right place or not without glancing down. Not that the trackpad is hard to miss, though -- the thing is huge.

As for the click: it's sharp, and surprisingly audible. It takes less than 10 seconds to get used to the "click anywhere" button. If you currently keep your thumb on your mouse button and track around with your pointer or middle fingers, there's a small adjustment you'll have to make: you'll have to lift your thumb off the bottom of the trackpad. If you don't, the machine will often register a two finger "pinch" motion. I've accidentally zoomed in the text on a few webpages this way, but it wasn't long before I was tracking and clicking with my pointer alone. 

I haven't yet customized my gestures, but I'm not sure I'm going to change a lot: the default gestures provided by Apple are extremely usable and really make the machine, dare I say it, fun to operate. 

The keys on the keyboard are softer to press than the clicky MacBook Air keys, but have the same soft texture. The backlighting is extremely bright on the highest setting. 

The speaker grills that flank the keyboard, despite standing out due to the flash in my picture, are often barely noticeable. They're so finely perforated that you can barely feel them when you run your finger over them. 

The glass screen is incredibly impressive. Even if you've watched the Leopard intro video a hundred times, you'll watch it again when your new MacBook or MacBook Pro boots up again. It's bright enough to defeat the glare in my bright office, but I've yet to test it outdoors. So far, despite preferring matte screens if given the choice, I'm sold on it. 

Overall, so far, so so good. This is definitely one device that we at Obsessable will be obsessing over for a long time to come.