Hi Steve, as a general rule, all else being equal bigger is better. Both Meade and Celestron are of roughly equivalent quality, so if the cost is similar you might as well go for the C11... there shouldn't be much difference in portability.
I may be a little bit more biased toward the Celestron optics because they "appear" to perform better for planetary imaging.
On the Meade side I do like the user friendliness of their auto-star software.
Why not get both, one for the week and one for sunday best
