There has been a lot of talk about a new smaller laptop to be released at the next macworld expo.
Otherwise the latest macbook has just undergone an update with a better graphics card and a speed bump on the processor.
Do yourself a favour and get as much RAM as you can afford, this is where you can get a price reduction from the dealers. If you shop hard to can normally get pretty close to the Apple store price from the dealers but then they will add RAM and software for a whole lot cheaper than the apple price.
Buy an extended warranty off the Apple site.
Hope that helps some.