I just receieved a nice dell laptop for graduation so Final Cut is out, and I would use Avid but they arent supporting Vista, or my soundcard at the moment so it isnt looking like a valid option. Adobe and Vegas are two that i hear are also pretty good options. Which do you think that i should choose? I qualify for academic prices and my system specs are below in case they help. Thanks for reading and please comment.

Dell Inspiron E1505 Laptop

2 gigs of RAM, 42 Gigs Free Memory

Adapter Description NVIDIA GeForce Go 7300

Audio: SigmaTel High Definition Audio CODEC

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T5600 @ 1.83GHz, 1833 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)

I use Vegas 6 and its very good to me! They both about the same I rate...

Adobe. It's basically the PC equal of FCP, and the academic package (which is completely the same as the normal one) is somewhere around $600.

I have the exact same thing as Cinematical and it's fine for me!

I use FCP, Premiere, and Vegas, and I can tell you, without a doubt that Vegas will allow you to edit faster. I personally like using it the best and find it the easiest, most intuitive, and best with sound NLE.

The others are still trying to catch up in the sound dept. as Vegas was developed on audio software from the beginning. For instance, you can edit 5.1 srround in the same timeline as your video.

Many of Vegas's other inovations are finally caught up to now by the FCP, but Premiere still can't touch it. I have been using the program for 4 years and I have NEVER ONCE has had to render an effect/motion/transition/composite in Vegas in order to see a render. EVERYTHING is handled real time and you can import as many wierd random file types into one timline as your heart desires. You can also change the project settings (framerate, field dominance, resolution, etc) at any time without need to set up a new timeline or render.

Vegas all the way.