Video editing laptop recommendation time again
 

I'm in the market for a laptop, and portability is my #1 priority, but the ability to edit video would be nice as well. $2700 is the high end of my budget.

Any recommendations on small 'n' light puppies that have lots of RAM, big fast hard drives, and FireWire and USB 2?

By posting your question here I assume it must also be a Windows-based unit?

Sorry, yep. Those iBooks are tres nifty, and I'd get one of those, except...

http://www.alienware.com/ makes some mighty powerful and nifty laptops

alienware seems to use sager laptops...?

In any case, it seems like sager laptops are much cheaper and just as powerful as the alienware laptops.
http://www.sagernotebook.com/index.html
pctorque.com <-- probably the best place to get a sager laptop. Check their resellerratings.com rating
http://go-l.com - Very 'interesting' website. This company sells rebadged Sager laptops. Take a look at their website for fun.

Just as a thought, does it need to be a laptop? What about a mini like a Shuttle and a LCD panel? Lots more horsepower for less, but it does need a little suitcase. But, the LAN party accessories may cover that.

I'm looking for something I can pretty much grab in a hurry and use anywhere, not something I have to pack in a crate and have shipped UPS to the local café.

The Alienware laptop looks bigger, more expensive, and less-featured than the comparable Dell.

I can say that the DELL laptops I've worked with (and am currently
working on) have worked great. However, I'm not sure if your
lightweight and easy to take with you is easily covered with those.
I know mine is a brick, but then again it is what they call a desktop
replacement and not a laptop pur sang.

Robert,

I have a Toshiba P3 900 about three years old. I needed something more for HDV, but it served me well for DV. The Invidia video module will show the overlay (video) window full screen on an external monitor while showing a normal view on the panel. A friend's Sony would not even show the video overlay window on two monitors at once. Check out the video capabilities!

I ran a 120 Gig firewire hard drive looped to a DVD burner, then looped to the camcorder. I could capture fine to the external HD - much faster than the internal 20 Gig. That single 4 pin firewire connection certainly expanded the capabilities!

Good luck!

Powerbook is a great machine and for the price you want to spend, you can get a loaded G4 17 inch. Get it with maxed ram. ...no the iBook is rather school related. ;-)

Look at the sager laptops instead, they should be the same thing except reasonably priced (Alienware is overpriced). Dell is also overpriced most of the time unless you snag a hot deal.

Sager also seems to make the highest end laptops...
high resolution LCD screen
2 7200rpm hard drives
The top Pentium processors at reasonable prices (Dell upgrades are waaaay overpriced)

Thanks for the recommendation, Glenn. I checked it out. Impressed that they offer laptops with 7200 rpm HDDs. But most of Sager's machines are between 7 and 11 pounds. (Again, I'm going for portability above all else--nothing over 5 pounds. If I can't snag it and take it with me quickly on impromptu journeys out the door, it'll never get used.)

I was also looking at the Fujitsu P7010D. Anyone have any experience with those machines?

Robert,

I know two people who have had Fujitsu laptops for several years who have been very happy - no tech problems. They were not editing video, however!

The Sager with two 7200 rpm 60Gig drives has proven to work very well for me. Yes, it's a little on the heavy side but it has LOTS of power.

i have the fujitsu n5010, which is probably too big for what you want, but it rocks! i do edit video on it.

take a look at the lcd screens on the fujitsu's and the sony's... as of earlier this year, no other laptop manufacturer had comparable screen technology... i think that it's called the x-bright on the sony?

fujitsu even makes a screen that is designed specifically to be used outside... be sure and check out the speed of the hard drive that you are getting, a lot of laptops come with 4200 rpm drives.