for me personally, the macbook is the perfect choice. i bought the top of the line mb (black) and could buy a 20in monitor and upgrade to 4gb of ram for less than the low-end mbp. the processors and cd/dvd drive are the same, and the mb has a larger hdd. gaming wise, the only gaming laptops i know of are thick, big-screened monsters that have poor portability. i have an xbox 360 for games and so have no need for gaming or the dedicated graphics card. i can easily put my mb in its incase sleeve (which fits perfectly in my backpack) and take it anywhere without worrying about dents.
the bottom line is, if you are going to do PROfessional work with dedicated software (photography, music production, video editing) then the mbp is for you and worth the extra money as it has better speakers, more ports, and the matte screen. for casual needs, (itunes, web browsing, watching movies, some light gaming, iwork or ms office) the mb is perfect.
i compared the two for about a year before deciding on my blackbook, and i am not disappointed and have no buyers remorse, knock on wood 2 inches of screen space and a backlit keyboard are not worth $500 to me.
i hope this helps!
One big thing is the dedicated video card. This offers much better performance for applications like Final Cut or Photoshop. The screen is also much brighter, and I say this from experience -- the last time I went to an Apple Store (one week ago) the Macbook screens looked inferior to the MBP in my opinion.
I've also read on here that you can't use the MBP on your lap because it gets too hot. Could you use MB on your lap though? It would really suck if I'm in like an Airport or waiting area and can't use an Apple notebook
Also, when I was comparing MB and MBP at a special Mac store in a hotel, the MB screen seemed brighter than the MBP Matte Screen. This particular store didn't have MBP Glossy Screen. Is the MBP Matte screen supposed to be a lot dimmer than the MB screen?
Here is one if you buy a MacBook Pro people will think you are a nerd cause you could have just got a MacBook and it wouldn't have been more expensive
As a side note, I would take the larger HD over the faster HD (I bought the 7200 200gb drive), mostly because I don't do any HD intensive tasks, and who couldn't use an extra 100gb of storage?
why not go for both and get the 7200 320GB onsale.com