I don't own a 17" PowerBook (I have a 12" PB), but 2 good friends of mine bought the 1.33GHz 17" PowerBooks at the same time and from the same store as I did. In general, they are both very happy with their machines. The 17" screen is of a very high quality. For the size of the machine, it is still quite light and of course very thin. My suggestion would be to spend some quality time at an AppleCentre somewhere actually playing around with the 17"...there is no better way to get a feel for things like the screen, keyboard, weight, size, responsiveness etc etc. Also, I wouldn't recommend buying direct from Apple Australia. You don't have any sort of bargaining power with them, and if something goes wrong with your purchase after 90 days you will have to pay for the privilege of picking up the phone to yell at them to get it fixed. A physical Apple dealer may be able to cut you some type of deal (discounts, extra stuff thrown in for free), and will give you a physical point of presence to visit and talk to if something goes wrong or if you need a warranty repair. Apple's own standard warranty and phone support terms aren't robust enough in my opinion to make it 'safe' to buy direct (unlike Dell where you get phone support for the duration of the warranty and on-site warranty in many cases too).
So far, one of my friends has dropped his 17" PB from desk height onto a tiled floor. It landed on one of the corners, and dented the aluminium case. He was able to use a little pressue and (mostly) bend the case back to its original form. You can hardly notice that it's been dropped, and the machine was not affected in any other way. My other friend however has noticed that when the screen angle is adjusted on his 17" PB, the backlight flickers on and off. It looks like there might be some type of loose connector between the screen and the main body of the notebook. He hasn't taken it back for repair yet, but will do so soon. Apart from those incidents (one of them being completely accidental), they have had no other problems with the 17" PB.
The biggest problem in their view (and mine) with the 17" PB is that for AUD$5500, you don't actually get a very fast machine. Ok, I know I've just invited a hundred zealots to attack me, but a 1.33GHz G4 will simply not keep up with a 1.8GHz Centrino or a 2.8GHz Pentium 4M like you might get in a $5500 Wintel notebook. The included Radeon 9600 video chip is top-notch, but you can't really use it effectively for gaming since the G4 chip isn't up to scratch. If you've been using Macs for 5 years you'll know for yourself what to expect in terms of speed from a 1.33GHz G4, but compared to my 1.6GHz G5, and one of the 17" PB owner's Athlon XP 2000+ systems, the 1.33GHz G4 is a bit slow. Take a look around barefeats.com for a comparison between some Centrino notebooks and some G4 PowerBooks. If you have a specific benchmark you're interested in, I can ask my friend to try it out on his 17" PB.
As with all Apple notebooks, it's a really practical package with great looks and design, and of course it runs Mac OS X (which I think is the main attraction). Just don't expect anything with a G4 in it to be performance competitive with the latest Centrino or P4-M systems for a similar price. OK bring on the counterclaims.
Hope some of this helps and wasn't just me ranting for too long ;-)
