[mattyb]

So, you get yourself a laptop, but don't want to fork out for a large Apple screen. What connectivity should one look for in a non-Apple screen? HDMI?

You have some external disks (Western Digital, USB) that you used as backup media. Should you get a Time Machine? Airport?

The wife likes a mouse, thats no prob. But she also likes a full sized keyboard - are there any decent Mac laptop compatible full-sized wireless keyboards out there (back lit would be appreciated)?

Be nice to keep the numbers of wires that connect to the MBP down to a minimum, the screen is the only thing that (AFAIK) you HAVE to have connected by physical media. Am I missing something?

There's some nice refurbs (15 inchers) atm and the iMac has hit 5 years old.

[Waragainstsleep]

A Time Machine has its own disk so if you want to use yours then the cheaper Airport Extreme would be adequate.
Wireless + backlit = crappy battery life.
Display wise, HDMI will restric the resolution to 1920 x 1200. Displayport can support more than this but its up to you whether you care about that of course.

The Apple display would mean you could connect wired keyboard & mouse and drives and display with one cable but thats a lot of extra cash to save on a few cables and batteries.

[Big Mac]

Concur with War.

[Spheric Harlot]

Nitpick: "Time Machine" is the backup architecture that works with any external hard drive.

"Time Capsule" is the Apple router with built-in hard drive that supports Time Machine over the network.

[Waragainstsleep]

Its one of those names that has permeated the public at large. Not as widespread as 'iTouch' or 'Mac Air' but still.