How do you get an audio CD to play on a MacBook Pro?

Question

I've actually looked around the site and see others have had the same problem with their mac, unfortunately I don't have the technical expertise or the time to get stuck into the long winded and confusing steps required to sort this problem. There is no option for me to email an Apple worker and I didn't particularly want to post this here, but it seems it's either this or wait two days to have Apple call me... Not what I want at all.
I have a Macbook Pro 13" late 2011, running OSX 10.7.2, which is two months old and in perfect condition. I upgraded from a Toshiba Satellite which cost me under £300 in 2008 and was excellent when it came to playing CDs... Funnily enough.
After paying £999 on an admittedly fantastic laptop I am rather appalled that such an expensive piece of kit would be incapable of playing audio CDs when iTunes seems to be one of the largest selling points of the Macintosh. I am wondering if this fault is intentional as it may force iTunes users to resort to the iTunes store rather than importing CDs?
I'm not expecting a solution to be posted on this thread, at least not one which I am capable of utilising, this is merely an attempt at venting my frustration over the issue seeing as I can't find an option to email Apple directly.
However if anyone reads this and knows of a solution that doesn't involve buying any extra kit (£999 seems to be enough for something to play CDs) or require in depth know-how  then that would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks.
Byron

Answer 1

Hi, and thanks for getting back to me.
My settings are to open iTunes when an audio CD is inserted and in iTunes my settings are to import it.
With all due respect I'm unwilling to entertain the idea that my drive is faulty, it's only been used a couple of times (plays DVDs perfectly, and I've doubled checked that tonight after the computer failed to recognise audio CDs) and the laptop itself so far has been thoroughly well looked after.
I've looked around the net and there seem to be plenty of people with the same problem as me, it seems unlikely that their machines were all shipped with faulty drives.
From what I understand it seems to be that audio CDs that have the Compact Disc Digital Audio logo printed on the box have no problem playing on a Mac but CDs without that logo will not show up in iTunes or Finder. But going through my collection of CDs none of them seem to have the logo printed on them so perhaps that's an old standard? In which case this issue is a major shortfall of the Macintosh. However my opinion is far from expert and in any case I'm just speculating. The whole issue is confusing and frustrating and I do thank you very much for taking the time to post your help.
Best regards
Byron