There has been a small buzz anti-buzz building against the 17″ with the folks I hang out with they’re commenting on the fact that “it’s WAY too big?”, “the 15″ inch is the sweet spot”, or “it’s going to bend’n’twist”.

Every single one of these people are a) full of crap, b) totally wrong, and c) secretly in love with the hardware.

While it may not merit a holy shit moment, you simply MUST put the 17″ in your lap and try it to have any sort of opinion. At a slow moment at MacWorld, I had a solid 10 mintes with the machine and I’m happy to report that it’s pure sex.

First, the case is solid. More solid then my 800Mhz TiBook. Second, as has been reported, the hinge is similar to the iBook, but you won’t fully know this until you open one up yourself. Third, they’ve updated the texture of both the keyboard and trackpad. It’s got a pleasant light graininess to it. Fourth, the huge amount of space is not distraction like the sea of pixels you have on the Cinema screens? it’s pleasantly large. Fifth, they’ve pulled off a great optical illusion by beveling the corners of the machine, it gives the impression that it’s thicker than the current TiBook, but it’s exactly the same thickness.

Dammit.