A MacBook Pro is a great machine. If you are in school, head over to apple.com and get an educational discount. You'll be able to run OS X and Windows on it seamlessly, so you'll have all the benefits of both systems. They are really fast, have good graphics for a startup system, just make sure to up your RAM to 2GBs as soon as you can.
The Universal versions of Final Cut Studio and Shake run circles around my Dual 2.5GHz G5 production system on the MacBook Pro. You won't be able to run native Adobe apps yet, unfortunately, as Adobe is taking it's sweet time with Universal builds, though you can run everything that isn't Intel-native through OS X's Rosetta emulation. You take a speed hit, but everything still works.
Try different reseller websites like macmall.com if you are looking for more pricing options.