My old laptop just made clear signs it's going under and I may need to replace it soon.

My needs are video editing when I'm on the go ( I have a desktop workstation as well) and also live video performance with a VJ software.

Looking around it seemed to me to go for either a Dell or a Sony Vaio F series, however I struggling infinding up-to-date high end models from the Vaio F here in Israel. so :

Thinking to go for the Dell Vostro 3700, with 1GB GT330 and 8 GB 1333 RAM. The new Studio XPS have killer graphic cards, but no VGA port (still very useful for me in live performance) and what worries me more, seemingly no express card expansion slot (?). The Precision computers are probably better, and feature a quadro 880M, but are really expensive and I'm not sure it's worth it. Are they supposed to be more robust? that's the only reason I'd really consider them over the Vostro.
Finally, I'd really like to stick with 15.6 for portability, but the Vostro 3500 has only a 512MB 310M card. How much of a factor could this be when working in Adobe PS/PP/AE?

Any feedback, people working with one of these models, especially the Vostro or the Precision would be very much appreciated....
thanx

You're asking a lot of your laptop to edit video. They're inherently limited in resources, so you tend to need an upper end laptop if you're going to do anything more than drop clips into a timeline. The Precision laptops are recommended because they tend to have more robust components and a generally more appropriate configuration for NLE laptops. A strong i7 machine can get you there with a good graphics card, but for the maximum performance, a video card that supports CUDA acceleration is best for more technical editing with Premiere Pro CS5. Windows 7 64-bit is a must if you have the aforementioned.


Much of your decision will be based on the software and the intensity of the editing.

Thanks Steve, a little too late though ;)
I ended up getting the vostro 3700, with an i7-820, gt330 1gb, 8gb 1333 ram. I couldn't justify the price of the precision models, especially since prices here in Israel are substantially higher than the US.
Overall I'm quite satisfied. If I could have waited a little longer I would now be able to get something with the new faster i7s but C'est la vie...