First of all, don't get a mac, just to get a mac...there are certainly cheaper laptops out there. However, if you want a laptop that will be good for editing video/pictures then mac is pretty much the way to go. They work really well, are very fast, and can certainly hold up to the high demand of video editing. They're also very good for surfing the web and basic word processing and stuff like that. I'd recommend going down to the nearest apple store/best buy and just play around with one for a little and see how you like it, you obviously wont be able to edit video there, but you'll get a good idea of how well they actually work. If you do decide to go with a pc, you'll need to make sure to have a lot of RAM and hard drive space as well as a fast processor, because they can tend to crash while editing video. Either way, make sure you also get an external hard drive or two for scratch discs and render files because if you save those file to your hard drive they can take up A LOT of space on your hard drive and slow down the editing process.