The answer is the most you can afford.

fastest processor, fastest hard Drives with the most storage (preferably 2 drives).

The most ram you can buy (probably 2 gigs in a laptop not a lot can take 4 unless you go the route of a business laptop)

as far as the best laptops out there, IMO it's lenovo no doubt, but my HP is alright. And they do have a 20.1" screen Dell XPS system out there but I vowed never to buy a Dell Laptop again, and I never will.

Dave

My brother just got one of the latest generation MacBook Pro laptops with LED backlighting for the LCD. Incredible display, and way extended battery life/increased brightness too. High class graphics card.

Larger models up to 17" 1920x1200, and that resolution really works too.

Those MacBook Pros work really well for Vegas too, as you may have already seen from many others in this forum.

boy- LED backlighting sounds pretty phat, I think that's about the only reason i could see buying one of those over a lenovo, but I don't know, they charge so much money for their machines and I've seen too many problems with macs. My cousin has found a 4/3 failure ratio with macs (laptops/desktops, etc...) that's right, I said 4 for 3. Folks say that's a non-normal situation but he gave apple several tries in several different flavors. Software wasn't a problem, it's been the hardware everytime. They used to be high class, now they seem to be selling on their name more than their current rack record.

Just one mans (well at least 2 mens) opinion.

Dave

Vegas users are lucky , they can use just about any laptop and vegas will work, unlike Avid or Premiere.

Asus G1 or G2 are great, thre only problem may be they come with Vista, and installing XP may be messy due to drivers for the video card.

Clevo 570ru is probably the best 17" option. You can get it with XP, fastest laptop video card on the market ( nVidia 7950GTX ) 1920 x 1200 resolution, 7200 hard disk, more upgradeable than the rest, etc.......

Thinkpad T61p with nVidia Quadro is good too.

2.2 ghz processor and 2GB of ram with any of these is the best price/performance point.

Sagem have a screaming monster, then there's Alienware.
Certainly neither of those are laptops, not unless you wear asbestos knickers.

Clevo 570ru I mentioned above is sold as Sager 5790 and Alienware uses it as a base for one of their's.

I got one and it doesn't run hot. It uses mobile processors up to 2.4 ghz. It's a little louder when the second fan kicks in, mostly due to a top end video card in there. It's also not as heavy as those using desktop processors ( it's about 8.5 lbs, not bad for a 17" laptop /desktop replacement )

I got an HP in March. Very happy I did.
DV9000 ... there are newer models now.
I took it on a 40 day trip overseas (used a 500gb external drive)
Spent lots of time using Vegas. All good.
Ordered mine online with Costco. No problems there either.

See this thread:
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?Forum=4&MessageID=515202

Apple has 12% of the U.S. laptop market now, and their owner satisfaction has been #1, ahead of the rest.

Other than some well publicized problems with batteries, etc., reliability has been outstanding according to very large surveys.

Service is second to none also. I just read about a guy from the U.S. who was travelling in Australia for work when his screen died. He went to a local Apple reseller who got it fixed in 2 days under Applecare (free warranty). Try that with any of the other brands: it will be more like 4-6 weeks, and that's after you get home.

Among PC notebooks, I've been quite satisfied with the support on my Compaq. Outstanding, competent people in the U.S. to communicate with about tricky problems I had with a mobo and chipset driver bugs, fixed very quickly with no BS.

I also have a MacBook Pro, one of the first ones made, can't say too much about service because I've never needed any. It has just worked perfectly at all times (nearly 24/7 since I bought it).

Their patented multi-touch trackpad is nice also, saves time and aggro.

I have my MacBook Pro sitting on an mStand (http://www.raindesigninc.com/mstand_ergonomics.html) on my desk, with an Apple keyboard underneath. This is a great arrangement that lifts up the screen closer to eye level, and leaves room for a full size keyboard underneath.

Certainly neither of those are laptops, not unless you wear asbestos knickers.


I could imagine that ;-) my wife has a Fujitsu Siemens that gets pretty hot too on your lap :-)

I have a Dell Latitude D820, business series, and it runs Vegas just fine.

/Ulf

Thanks, all. Good put.

>>>local Apple reseller who got it fixed in 2 days under Applecare (free warranty). Try that with any of the other brands: it will be more like 4-6 weeks, and that's after you get home<<<

Stop by an ASUS service center and they'll change the screen right in front of you in less than an hour. At least I heard from somebody who did that. I never needed any service from ASUS, 2 laptops in the past 3 years ( one crash during all that time ) and Sager is, so far running without a hitch.

I admit that Apple finally has a decent laptop for a competitive price, but if you want options, look elsewhere.

Just purchased an Alienware m9750 to run Vegas 6.0, DVD Architect, Avid Xpress Pro and ACID Pro. I'm looking forward to seeing what it can do:

Video/Graphics Card: 512MB NVidia® GeForce™ Go 7950 GTX
Chassis: 17" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD with Clearview Technology - Stealth Black
Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7600 2.33GHz 4MB Cache 667MHz FSB
Memory: 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz - 2 x 1024MB
Operating System (Office software not included): Genuine Windows® XP Professional
System Drive: Extreme Performance (RAID 0) - 200GB (100GB x 2) Serial ATA 1.5Gb/s 7,200 RPM w/ NCQ & 8MB Cache
Primary CD ROM/DVD ROM: 8x Dual Layer CD-RW/DVD±RW Burner
Wireless Network Card: Internal Intel® Wireless 4965 a/b/g/Draft-N Mini-Card
Sound Card: High-Definition Audio with surround sound
Mouse: Logitech® V270 Bluetooth™ Optical Mouse - Silver
External Storage: 100GB Seagate Portable External Hard Drive

I had read some horror stories about Alienware from back in 2005 (mostly shipping related), but it seems that since they hopped on board with Dell that they've gotten their act together.

Anyway, I read and had others tell me that a gaming laptop was the way to go for video editing. So, we'll see how it goes. It should be in toward the end of next week.

I went to the Alienware.com and checked out this configuration., then to the Apple Store (store.apple.com) to configure a MacBook Pro with as similar specs as possible.

The Alienware cost $3,598 as you configured it (w/o the external stuff), or $3,298 if you go with a single, non-RAID 0 system drive (RAID 0 is for gamers only imho). (And NCQ does nothing for a workstation, it's a server need, at least with current software.)

The MacBook Pro came to $3,049.00 with a 17" 1920x1200 screen, although that is with nVidia 8600M GT graphics instead of the 7950 in the Alienware, and with a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU instead of the 2.33 GHz in the Alienware.

So, very comparable as usual. May the myth of high Mac prices be buried once and for all... [yeah, right :O)]

Could you guys run the HDV Rendertest with your laptops? I would assume that they are quite a bit slower than the desktops, but maybe not so.

MacBook Pro laptop, 2.16 GHZ w/ 2 GB Ram running Vista Ultimate under Bootcamp: 5:25 using Vegas 7.0D.

I bought this one late in the spring - you'll find much faster processors available on them now.

Rick

>>>So, very comparable as usual. May the myth of high Mac prices be buried once and for all... <<<

It's not a myth. In my post above I mentioned that apple finally has competitive pricing, and that happened just a few months ago when they switched to nVidia 8600 series cards. Before that macbook pro was at least $500 more for exact same configuration compared to ASUS.

The alienware in question is , I'm pretty sure, based on Clevo.
And you can get a similarily configured Sager for under $3000, slower CPU, but faster nVidia card, so again less for a Sager than a macbook pro. And you can upgrade your video card to the next generation when they come out, no go with a mac.

I agree, mac has finally become a more reasonably priced option, and is a good machine, not as customizable, but it already has pretty good components, so you don't really need to customize it.
But this is not something one could say just a few months ago ( when they were still using ATI cards or those cheap nVidias ).

Folks say that's a non-normal situation but he gave apple several tries in several different flavors. Software wasn't a problem, it's been the hardware everytime. They used to be high class, now they seem to be selling on their name more than their current rack record. They were shipping with WD harddisks that were failing. Most of the users I know swap them out for seagates.

That's funny. I just had to swap out the factory Maxtor in our mail server at work with a Seagate due to rapid escalation of bad blocks that OS X didn't identify. I could find nothing online suggesting this was a common occurance. It was pretty alarming to see 80 gigs disappear over a weekend, and have Disk Utilty say everything was just peachy.

Joe

Uh-oh..I'm backing up my video files to a Maxtor currently. I figure between the 200GB on the laptop I ordered, the 100GB on the hard drive I ordered and the 300GB I have on my Maxtor, I should be good to go on storage space for a while.

Regarding Raid0, through my research, I learned that it was good for (copied from one source in particular, but these traits showed up more than once):
* Video Production and Editing
* Image Editing
* Pre-Press Applications
* Any application requiring high bandwidth

...so that's why I went that route. I went with the Alienware because I read very good things about the m9750. I did give some very serious consideration to the Sager machines, though.

Checked out the lenovo but best screen is 15.4 inches WXGA VibrantView TFT LCD Glossy at only 1280x800 res so why so good?

Lenovo T61p comes with 1920 x 1200 resolution and a quadro card for close to $3K ( depends on other options ).

That would be the one to get if you are buying Lenovo, ( only concern would be 1920 x 1200 being a little to high for a 15.4 " screen. a 17" screen would be perfect for that resolution. )

Thanks deusx-I'll look at their site again. Still 15.4 is small for HDV resolution.

Re DELL: The recomended E1705 is nolonger. Here is a replacement that comes out to $2114:

PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7300 (2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB/4MB cache) OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium EditionDISPLAY High Resolution, glossy widescreen 17.0 inch display (1920 x 1200) VIDEO CARD 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT MEMORY 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz HARD DRIVE Size: 250GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)OPTICAL DRIVE CD / DVD writer (DVD+/-RW Drive) WIRELESS NETWORK CARDS Intel® 3945 802.11a/g Mini-card
BATTERY OPTIONS 85Whr Lithium Ion Battery (9 cell) SOUND OPTIONS High Definition Audio 2.0

This seems best value I have found.