I thought it was meant to be funny. Shame to see it marked as "insightful."

Dell XPS M1730:
Weight: Starting at 10.6 lbs10 (4.81 kg)
Width: 16.0" (406 mm)
Height: 2.00" (50.7 mm)
Depth: 11.9" (302.6 mm)

17" MacBook Pro
Height:
        0.98 inch (2.50 cm)
Width:
        15.47 inches (39.3 cm)
Depth:
        10.51 inches (26.7 cm)
Weight:
        6.6 pounds (2.99 kg)1

Note how the 17" MBP is smaller in every single dimension. In your comparison, you made a huge compromise, and that was on the laptop's size. You can argue whether that's worth $1200, but it probably isn't worth $0.

Par for the course on Slashdot, but basically the entire basis of his gripe is the glossy screen, hence the complaint about viewing angles.

Then there's this gem:

It's important to remember that, even though the late-2008 MacBook Pro 15 inch doesn't keep up in either colour accuracy or viewing angle with laptops from IBM/Lenovo, its display is still quite good and still falls on the right side of the line of acceptable display quality for field use by a working photographer, at least in ambient light that discourages reflections.

From earlier:

Sum it up, and what you have is a very good 15.4 inch (diagonal), 1440 x 900 pixel screen. Good, that is, for a laptop. Its characteristics are very similar to the MacBook Pro 15 inch we wrote about in July 2007, and others we've set up since. The display has some colour quirks that put it one or two steps below a good desktop display, and it's important to maintain a consistent, front-and-centre viewing angle, but as with the previous generation of this Apple laptop, display quality is absolutely acceptable and usable for image assessment and simple Photoshop edits in the field, as long as you're aware of the display's particular blend of strengths and weaknesses.

Basically, if you hate glossy screens, and it would appear these individuals do, the glossy can be a deal-breaker. Which anyone with half a brain could have told you without the trollish tone

FWIW, the 17-inch MBP comes with a matte-screen option. Time will tell if such an option trickles back down to the 15".