For the question about the 15 vs the 17, I personally love my NEW, LINED 15" PowerBook. I would not trade my battery life and portability for a better screen. Period.
For those asking about the 7200 hard drive, it was not people who were installing the drives themselves that made recommendations. Apple installs two different 7200 drives into their machines. Both are 100GB. One is made by Hitachi, and one is made by Seagate. Reports say that the Seagate is significantly quieter. I own one personally, and while it is definitely louder than my old iBook (which had a 4200 RPM drive), it's still not what I'd call a noisemaker in any capacity. I cannot hear it if any sounds on my computer play at all, if my ceiling fan is on, or pretty much anything else that makes a consistent sound is going. I certainly won't be able to hear it when I move back into my dorm, as my roommate has a noisy desktop PC.
For those asking if we could tell a difference between 5400 RPM and 7200, I definitely can tell a difference in speed as I have been transferring large files a lot lately. With the large files involved in video editing, it would make a significant one. When you're installing large programs, copying things to disk, you'll notice a difference. In just plain 'ol application operation and such, the difference isn't so big. For average users, it's just about weighing the cost/benefits. If you actually NEED 120GB on a laptop, cool. If you want slightly quieter operation, slightly cooler operation, and and your ego can handle the fact that your neighbor's PB will score a couple points higher on Xbench than yours will, then go right ahead and get the bigger drive.
, quieter operation, and 20gb more space.
