I purchased this model with an anti glare display and 8GB of RAM. 1 year later and it is still screaming. I have removed the HDD and put in a Crucial M4 256GB SSD in. This notebook is very powerful. Geekbench scores are just over 10,000 and having a SSD inside makes executing any task very fast. I like screen real estate but after having this big of a notebook, I would not hesitate to say that buying a 13" Air and a Thunderbolt Display might be a better option. I don't do graphic intense applications but this laptop can handle just about anything I've thrown at it. Convert HD movies into .m4v in 15 minutes. It's very reliable. The heat and noise are the only things that get to me. If I'm just browsing or emailing, it's fine. However, if I have a game open or viewing video on Safari, the fans kick on and it can be distracting. Overall, this notebook has been my most reliable computer I've ever had. I plan on taking out the optical drive and installing an OWC Data Doubler to put my old 750GB HDD in as extra storage and also 16GB of RAM. If you like a big screen and do a lot of video or graphic work, nothing compares to this MacBook Pro.