PSA: read your MacBook user manual

My Dell 'laptop' (I use the term sarcastically for a 9-pound brick) also has a warning about it not being put on exposed skin. The MacBook Pro gets hot on me, but no more so than the Dell, and frankly, I prefer the MBP of the two!

By the way: even if the macbook didn't get that hot to be uneasy to have it on your lap, you shouldn't do that anyway: increase the temperature around your genitals a few degrees (I think, actually bringing it up to your body temperature is already enough) and your little soldiers will die from the heat.
So you should dump the idea of constantly having a warm computer on your lap anyway if you want to have kids any time soon...

to justify... "prolonged" is not a correct word.

When I was returning my overexcited macbook pro, the geniuses quoted that sentence as well. my response was: leave that thing on your lap for 60 seconds and i'll never come to bother you again".

None of the genius has the balls.

So i got full refund, no re-stock fee.

Yeah, that thing about the magnets being potentially destructive... I learned that the hard way last night when I corrupted a floppy disk for a theatrical lighting console. I lost the whole show that I'd programed and saved to that disk, and I couldn't figure out what could possibly have happened untill just now. Staying up all night to re-program is one good way to learn this lesson, I suppose.

Lara

Uh... show me anywhere apple has called one of its portable machines as a LAPTOP anywhere in the last 5 years.
This news is so old its funny.
AppleCare employees have been trained for at least half a decade to call all the portable apple computers... portable computers, and to -never- use the phrase laptops. This is olde schoole... no one has just ever picked up on it.

That "Prolonged contact with your body could cause discomfort and potentially a burn" text was also in my iBook manual, it's not new text at all.

Considering that the function keys get hot enough to make using them uncomfortable on some MacBook Pros, the "not a laptop" argument doesn't really fly. Unless you're not actually supposed to use the keyboard on "portable" computers.

All "these aren't laptops" comments aside, with our litigation-happy culture, surely someone would have sued Apple because their 3-hour marathon WoW session caused a minor burn on their thighs.

The same is likely true with the MagSafe cord: "Hey, it sticks to my computer, think it sticks to my iPod?!??!!?"........."Wait, where'd my data go!?"........"I had to resync my data, now I want personal distress damages; I'm suing!"

This sounds like a case of Apple covering their ass if you ask me. I do think it's interesting that they're making the distinction between "laptop" and "portable computer," though.

So when I RTFA, I learned that I should RTFM

Nowhere in any Apple documentation is the MacBook or MacBook Pro (or iBook or Powerbok for that matter) referred to as a laptop. They are not designed to be used on your lap, or on any soft surface for that matter because it does not allow the designed heat dissipation to work correctly.