Cheers mixture,
indeed I haven't snooped around the Apple Store in a while.. better take a look soon then! Re. SSD being better or not, I haven't read enough about it to really make an objectively informed decision, I was just impressed by how quiet, slim and fast the Macbook Air was when I tried it out at a duty-free shop in LGW...
MBP QuadCore sounds *very* enticing