I have the 15" 1Ghz model that was released in November 2002 and have been very happy.
If you wanna max out the RAM at 1 GB you might look into doing it now as IIRC with 512 mb they split it into 2- 256 MB pieces so if you wanna change later on you're forced into getting 2- 512 MB pieces. At the time I purchased mine they were doing a double RAM promo for $40 so at the time it was a no brainer.
[This message has been edited by kluau88 (edited 06-04-2003).]