Okay, I am totally confused about what to get so am looking for suggestions.

My requirements are basically for a decent production system for editing and a bit of VFX, running Avid MC(on Windows) and Final Cut Pro comfortably with decent firewire capabilities. I just want to get through a simple editing project without being faced with the desire to blow my head off with a shotgun, that's all.

My budget is in the area of US$1500, less is better.

I was considering getting a laptop that is qualified for AVID like a DELL Precision workstation and installing OSx86 on it, but that is way out of my price range.

The Macbook seems closer to what I can afford but I will definitely have to install Windows on it for the Avid. Although, I haven't been able to find any conclusive details of whether or not that is a good idea.

The Mac mini will probably run Final Cut Express, but same doubts as the Macbook when it comes to Avid and Windows.

If anyone can give any suggestions or their experiences with this or something similar, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.

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Desktop:
AMD Athlon 64 3000+
MSI RS482M2 Motherboard
2GB DDR400 RAM
1x 80 GB IDE HDD
2x 120GB SATA HDDs
Creative Audigy Sound Card
GeForce 8500GT PCI-e Card

Laptop:
CPU
AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile TL-50 (Socket S1 638), Codename: Taylor,
Cores: 2, Instructions: MMX, 3DNow, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, x86-64
Motherboard
Quanta 30B7
Chipset: Nvidia GeForce 6150
Southbridge: Nvidia nForce 410/430 MCP
Memory
4GB Dual Channel DDR2 RAM
Sound
Conexant HD Audio