Budget ~ $2500.00,
Please provide suggestions regarding good PC laptops for Vegas editing (most likely I will continue to use my PC for rendering of large projects.
MacBook Pro w/17-inch widescreen display
2GB RAM, 160GB HD, 8x DVD DL burner, 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 256MB of GDDR3 memory
$2,349 from Apple's refurb store, with new warranty
Add a Windows XP license (or Vista if you are into UAC self-flagellation), and you'll still be under budget.
If you can live with a 2.4 GHz CPU instead of the 2.6, the price drops to $2,149.
Beautiful machines that have long proven to hold their value much better than other laptops.
Note also that you can buy an AppleCare warranty extension anytime within one year. You can buy that from Apple, or from dealers on eBay who frequently sell them at a discount. These cost much less than PC laptop extended warranties and provide much better service than the ones I have had on my PC laptops.
And Vegas runs great on these as you probably have seen from years of postings here.