With all upgrades it'll get quite pricey, but if you're willing then why not!
Upgrading the RAM will be the most noticible enhancement, but it's something that you would want to do local rather than built-to-order. If you really love performance, then definitely do the built-to-order hard drive upgrade to 7200rpm. It'd would be a huge hassle to do it on your own.
It sounds like you want performance over everything else, so definitely 15 over 12 inch.
15 inch powerbook is an awesome machine... you can't go wrong.
Regarding the monthly payment issue... it's only for US. Why? Probably because Canadians aren't trustworthy to them.
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It sounds like both machines be sufficient for your use.
LOL. Yes, the more expensive the better is a rule of thumb...
The MAJOR difference between the 12 and 15 inch is of course... the screen size. The recent update on the 15 inch gave it a better resolution on the screen, which means you can see more...
If money isn't too big of a problem, the 15 inch is the way to go...
It's better looking and better performance than the 12 inch, not that the 12 inch is bad in any way, but the 15 inch is amazing.
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I would go with the 15" - it is portable (enough) it has a gorgeous screen, a faster CPU, Firewire 800 and a PCMCIA slot, and audio inputs.
When you are building up your machine, buy the minimum amount of RAM from Apple and add your RAM from a reputable third-party seller who tests and guarantees compatibility with the Powerbook. You'll save $$$ over Apple's RAM price.
You'll want to make the decision though about 5400 or 7200 RPM hard drive before you order, because you want the hard drive covered under Apple's warranty (It's easy to take out the extra RAM before sending it in for service, not so easy the hard drive)
Don't get hung up over getting the largest internal hard drive however, because whatever you get you'll want an external 3.5" Firewire hard drive for backup, as an emergency boot drive for data repairs, and for extra storage.
If you're really looking for performance, must go for the 7200rpm drive BTO option. I've owned a PC laptop before with 4200rpm drive before... it was a centrino, so cpu performance was really well, but the drive is a huge (or small?) bottleneck problem.
15 inch is so beautiful for the reasons that CanadaRAM said.
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