gdgt

The thing is, you're not really lugging this around. my friend has the 17 incher and it is surprisingly large, yet small and portable, if you know what I mean. it's not at all like the luggy 17" HP's you see at Best Buy. The only downside is that it would probably take up working space in college :.

Ya my dad has one and it is a lot smaller than most of the other manufacturer's. It is the lightest for it's size too.

If you are worried about size, just think of it this way...if you end up buying a laptop bag be it a shoulder bag or a backpack, the 17" isn't that much larger at all!!! It might be a little big on a lap desk but it's great. I'm using the 15" unibody and sometimes wish I had the space of 1920x1200 resolution. I just didn't want to wait anymore to upgrade my Powerbook G4 Gigabit 667Mhz.

People are absolutely dead on with comment like this:

"The thing is, you're not really lugging this around. my friend has the 17 incher and it is surprisingly large, yet small and portable, if you know what I mean."

I have one along with a 13inch MBP and in a large Timbuk2 Laptop bag it is heavy but definitely manageable. If this is for college I would recommend it if you never took it to class; way to large for notes on a small desk.

It's definitely not the breeziest thing around - you'll need a fair amount of real estate in your bag for it - but it's light and skinny, so it's no backbreaker. The real question you have to ask yourself is whether or not the extra couple inches will really be a benefit to your needs. When it really comes down to it, the only worth-the-money reason you'd need the 17" is for heavy graphical work (or I suppose for gaming, but I don't really see the point in using a laptop for that, much less one running OS X), which is what I'll be doing in school next year. If this is the case, by all means it is a worthy investment, otherwise I'd recommend the 15" model.

I find it pretty portable as big laptops go. It's pretty light, thin and rugged so you'll not be too worried about it getting destroyed in transit. It is pretty wide so you'll need a bigish laptop bag to hold it, Proporta.com do some good stuff.

I took it on a 6hr journey on a coach (x2, there and back) with me where I had a huge rucksack to cart around aswell and it hardly added to the load. I have a relatively slim laptop case which means that I'm not carrying something that huge around, however I do find that fitting the power adaptor in makes things a little more bulgey in some places. I don't regularly carry it around with me so not sure about long term portability, but I can't image it being that bad.

The advantage of the higher resolution over portability is a good point as the 17" is a pretty sizeable thing to have on your knees or a table, so unless you really feel you need the higher res it may be better to go with the 15", particularly as the new versions make it more comparable on spec to the 17".

No matter how thin or light you make it, a 17" laptop will never be portable.

And to use that much high resolution efficiently, you'll need to use a mouse anyway. The trackpad's more for looks than anything else.

Does anyone use one on the cramped single seats of the Thameslink train line from Luton to Brighton??? Is that too specific a request?

If I were you, I'd get the 15". I'm in college, and I know a few people with the 17". It's amazing, but really not that portable for them. They use them more as desktops than laptops. They definitely don't take them to class as they are too big for the desks. However, the 15" ones are much better for class. Again, that's what I would do. Hope it helps.

In my opinion, if you only occasionally need the portability this ins good option. But if you need to take a computer around with you all the time, you can really appreciate the convenience of a smaller and lighter option.

If you can't carry around an ext. monitor, then the 17" high res. is the only way to go, so to speak. :P
I have to carry two, one Mac and one Sony, both 17 and 1920x1200. The Mac is really thin, and fits a backpack easier. The Sony is really thick, and only fits a huge backpack. Besides the MacBookPro batt. lasts more than twice as long as the Sony's. The MacBookPro is almost 2 lbs. lighter.
But can the 15" have enough screen for YOU? Only you can answer that, and if it does then the 15" would be better. But the 'smaller' screen' will bug you, it did to me, hence the larger backpacks I carry. :)