I must say that If you want to run your 3DS Max on a laptop at full-settings, that means really looong render times, and probably some crashes now and than!
If you just want a laptop, I recommend compaqs, as they got a pretty good price-performance ratio (mine had).
If you want something to run you max on, than get youself a desktop!! They get way stronger for way less!! And I know what Im talking about...as I have both :P
Oh and about the vista thing, running vista on a laptop means that it must be a high-performance laptop! As vista requires a lot of memory and procesor speed to run smoothly....Microsoft is realeasing some "service-packs" somewhere this year, and they should speed up vista!! So if you think about vista on your laptop, wait for those service packs, and see how fast vista gets
