Hello everybody

What i've come here for is some advice. As expected, the first dilemma i have been faced with on this journey is the fundamental question "What camera do i buy!". I was very close to purchasing the hdr sr12, and despite it looking like a beautiful camera, from what i've read, editing it's avhcd is much a daunting task, only viable for those with the most powerful of computers. For future reference my pc specs will be:

Dell XPS M1710
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Extreme X9000
Windows Vista(R) Ultimate 32 bit SP1 Edition
4GB (2x2GB) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
200GB* 7200 RPM SATA RAID 0 (Data Striping)
Dual 512MB NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) 8800M GTX with NVIDIA(R) SLI(TM) Technology

and apparently laptops are not the best choice for HD editing. Would it be more appropriate for me to spend a bit extra and go for a low-end professional camera like the Sony FX1? I have about $2500 budget, quality and editing (hopefully with adobe Cs3) are of utmost importance. Any other tips for such a task would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.