PC World will delight Mac users with this, but of course they're not telling the whole story: In addition to being far more expensive than the competition, the MacBook Pro also doesn't come with Windows, which is an expensive retail purchase, though it does come with a non-standard Apple keyboard that will prove vexing to Windows users. I suppose the "fastest" label must be accepted in isolation. That said, the MacBook Pro is a pretty machine:
The fastest Windows Vista notebook we've tested this year is a Mac. Try that again: The fastest Windows Vista notebook we've tested this year--or for that matter, ever--is a Mac. Not a Dell, not a Toshiba, not even an Alienware. The $2419 (plus the price of a copy of Windows Vista, of course) MacBook Pro's PC WorldBench 6 Beta 2 score of 88 beats Gateway's E-265M by a single point, but the MacBook's score is far more impressive simply because Apple couldn't care less whether you run Windows.
In a weird coincidence, I'm traveling to Redmond this coming week and will be taking a Vista-enabled MacBook (not Pro, not the "fastest" at anything). This is for my ongoing "Windows Vista Installation SuperGuide" series and because it is reasonably light and portable. I'm also bringing an Ultra-Mobile PC (along with a slim external keyboard and a mouse) for an article about that device and the Microsoft software that drives it. For someone like me, traveling with these kinds of machines represents quite a departure. I prefer ThinkPads by a wide margin.