I think as it's been said before, the update to Montevina is a pretty long way from now. I was thinking a similar thing to you but I will buy one after the upcoming update and then assess the situation when the montevina updates come.
Montevina is meant to be released around May (which would suggest in time for WWDC), but there are rumours about Intel pushing Montevina back due to the delays with the mobile Penryn chips.
Also, the update to Montevina could make the MBP more expensive because it will support DDR3 RAM instead of DDR2.
Current Penryn CPU's in the T-series Apple is employing have a TDP of 35w, future Monteviña T-series or others will have lower TDP. DDR3 might be more expensive, but it all depends on volume production and the volatile RAM market. DDR3 are supposed to be more energy efficient in design.
The Santa Rosa/Penryn updates may or may not have LED bl screens, may or may not have multi-touch trackpads. May or may not have significant GPU upgrades, most likely will NOT have a SSD option (too expensive right now).
Monteviña based MBP's, will *likely* have an 128GB SSD Samsung 1.8in option, as Samsung claims they will have both the 9.5mm thick 2.5in 3 platter 500GB HD & 128GB SSD 1.8in in production by March 2008. GPU upgrades are a given by launch of a Monte MBP. LED bl, more than likely.
Power saving tech, LED bl, lower TDP of the CPU, more efficient DDR3 on a slightly faster FSB, all means either noticeably higher performance would be possible, or a compromise for significantly longer battery life.
One thing Lenovo already has as an $600 option to their Thinkpad line, is a BR drive. If not available on the Penryn/SR update, then surely by Monteviña. Monteviña is due in May according to the digitimes cache below, not that Apple will have a system shipping by then.
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cach...ontevina+CPUs+in+May&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
Of course what we really want is turbo cooling and that QX9300 45w TDP Quad Core in a 16in or 18.4in MBP.
😀
