Released (announced) today. Ships in 1-2 weeks. This one has been too long in the waiting for way too many reasons. but now it's here and it looks like they've corrected some of the 15" model's configuration issues.

Firewire 800 is back. Even if you don't use "800" it can be used as a second firewire port. Extra ports are nice to have. And the most important "extra" port in my opinion is the addition of a 3rd USB port. Yay! While at a desk I always use a Microsoft Laser6000 Notebook mouse which takes up one port with its receiver. My flash drive is always in and out of the second port. That means when I want to toss a card reader in there I'm stuck. Or another flash drive to copy from one to the other for instance.

When I finish setting up my permanent office space I think I'll have a USB hub to minimize all the plugging, then I can keep a USB keyboard hooked up at all times. It's a bit of surprise Apple hasn't come out with a standard "dock" connector for their notebooks, what with the popularity of the iPod's dock accessories.

The specs are rounded out with 120GB 5400rpn drive standard, 1GB of memory, the return of an 8x DVD superdrive, 1680x1050 resolution and (can't forget) a 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo processor standard. US$2800 - the SAME price as the 15" model configured with a 2.16GHz processor. Yet the 15" has a smaller HD, slower optical drive, no FW800 and minus 1 USB port (in addition to its biggest difference, the display size).

I suspect Apple may be seeing higher desireability for the 15" form-factor and is keeping the price at this level as a sort of premium.

This G4 PowerBook I'm using now must be swapped out by the summer. I'm just having a hard time deciding if I go to 17" or the 15.4" Intel model.

Bruno