I've looked at the FCS specs, CPU, RAM and hard disc minimums are more than satisfied with the MBP 13".

Now that the 13" has a discreet Nvidia (albeit sharing memory with main RAM) graphics card, that requirement is also satisfied.

The Color app needs a screen resolution of at least 1680x1050: Is this really a hard requirement?

i.e. will the Color app exit with an error message saying not supported at this resolution or will it work but with less space for items in its user interface? For example Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 used to say minimum resolutions but I can run it on my Toshiba NB100 netbook at 1024x600 just fine. (BTW as an aside even this 200pound netbook has an eSATA port!)

Also I intend to use an external 23" 1920x1080 screen plugged into the MBP13" a lot of the time at home.

Also what about the Core 2 Duo on the 13" versus the i5 dual core hyperthreaded = 4 threads or i7 quad core = 8 threads on the new (Apr2010) 15" and 17" MBPs.

I intend to capture from solid state flash card, so dropped frames due to slow(is) internal 5400rpm non-raid hard drive capturing from real time playout of tape is not an issue.

Where would I notice the difference in speed? Where would the MBP 13" run noticeably slower compared with the new 15" and 17"?

I would expect the entry 2.4Ghz 13" Apr2010 model to run FCS/FCP reasonably well, given that people have coped with this sort of spec in the past.

As long as editing works reasonably smoothly on the 13" MPB, e.g. I can go backwards and forwards through my work, preview multiple tracks/effects (at lower resolution, if necessary - by using RTExtreme feature with ProRes422Proxy) and then leave it render to maximum high quality overnight, then I would be happy.

The smaller size of the 13" and lower cost make it more attractive to gain a more rounded cross platform skillset by entering into the Mac scene and for future opportunities requiring those skills.

The benefits buying a higher end notebook diminish against cost and increasing screen size (more to carry around), also that only the cumbersome (IMHO) 17" has ExpressCard34 for SATA input.