I have a Dell Studio 17 That Handles AVCHD quite well...

How many layers, FX, etc. do you usually have in your project?
How many layers, FX, etc. does it take to choke your Dell Studio 17 laptop?

I generally do a multicam shoot consisting of 3 to 4 cams using a Sony NX5U,AX2000,as well as a Canon HG21and HG10
Sync with Plural Eyes, I use New Blue Pro Titler,some FX Color correction, Fades, Cuts ect...Lappy seems to handle it fine....

We will be seeing Ivy Bridge based laptops in a few months. Faster quad core processors that are more power efficient in the smaller systems.
If you can wait a bit longer you should check them out.
You'll be seeing quad cores in laptops that could only accept dual cores due to power/thermal limitations.
And you will see faster quads in laptops that currently have quads.
Ivy Bridge isn't a big desktop upgrade from Sandy Bridge but it will be for laptops.

Thanks to everyone with your responses, I will explore all options.

Has anyone tried installing vegas on a mac, using bootcamp?

I have used Vegas 9 & 10 both on a MacBook (2009) with W7 Pro (64-bit) and a Mac Pro (2008) with XP-SP3 (32-bit), both 8GB (though XP 32-bit only sees part of that RAM). MacBook is used for editing, MacPro for heavier jobs like deinterlacing, denoising and transcoding. MacBook is convenient of course, and when at office I run it extended screen to a monitor (VGA adaptor-lead needed), but I don't like the MacBook tendency to overheat unless supported off the desk nor the fact that its BootCamp doesn't like its FireWire port. In contrast the MacPro remains cool and its BootCamp is happy with its FW800 provided that is only used for file transfer, not camera control (no issue gor me - I use an old laptop on such rare occasions).

I also got it running under Parallels under Mac OS, surprisingly fast, but less stable in my (not particularly gifted or broad) experience of trying that. Handy though.

You can't beat Clevo laptops. Sold in the USA as Sager or some other brand sometimes.

I got two 15" with i7 2760 QM from these guys http://www.malibal.com/boutique/pc/configurePrd.asp?idProduct=525

You can also configure it with matte or glossy 95% NTSC display which cover the entire adobe RGB gamut.

No problems with Vegas and files dropped from GH2 play at full speed even on full/best with a couple of basic FX. I suggest you get nVidia not ATI video card.
When you add the high gamut screen, 2760qm cpu, windows pro you'll end up at around $1700

Apple sells the exact same hardware without a high gamut screen option for $1000 more, so obviously I would not recommend them

I had to return one after a month ( eeprom chip died and it wouldn't power up ) they fixed it pretty quickly. I've owned 4 Clevos so far and that was the only problem I've encountered and things like that can happen with any brand. You can do some research and see which re-seller fits you best. ava direct, xoticpc, sager, malibal and mythologic are ones I can remember right now that sell Clevo laptops under their own brand name.

Deusx,

I purchased an 'F' during Black Friday. However, instead of the default components I opted for those which would provide improved performance. These include:

4-core i7 (default was 2-core)
minimal memory from Sony - replaced all with 8GB faster RAM from Crucial (as I recall)
Hard drive 7200rpm
higher-end video card. not much diff here but the upgrade was free.

Even tho I've pumped up this laptop as far as possible my desktop at work with a much higher-end Nvidia card smokes the laptop.

Not much is mentioned re the video card in this thread. The difference between nonGPU and GPU processing is dramatic when I've testing this on my work desktop.

If the Dell and Clevo models mentioned in the thread have a low-end GPU you might not see much diff with the HD files.

Also, re laptops in general, they obviously have to use small internal cooling fans - which by definition are extremely noisy. Perhaps, as one reply stated, the IvyBridge laptops will run cooler, however, my F's fan ramps up with major GPU activity. So, even with IB the GPU will more than likely still present a cooling response (jet-engine noise factor) from the laptop.


Steve

I bought this one: http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX35461
Vegas flys on it.