Lappytop?

[Cortexian]

I turned 17 yesterday (the 17th), and my parents gave me this as a gift, I haven't had time to install a non-bloatware OS yet, and I'm to lazy to track down and download all the drivers I would require. Anyways, tell me what you think, I'm mainly using it for media stuff like Photoshop, Flash, Premiere, etc. It's also going to be used for a bit of gaming here and there, as well as web developing with Dreamweaver.

http://shopping.hp.ca/cStoreCA/BaseDetails.asp?PType=58&ProductLineId=59&FamilyId=224&BaseId=3723&BEId=5&Lang=EN

Anything in particular I should do when I get around to formating and installing a normal version of windows? This is the first laptop I actually care about keeping in good condition (it's fully loaded, fingerprint reader, slate/tablet function, everything), so I don't want to screw anything up.

[Funions]

What kind of gaming are you planning of doing on that machine? Just do a fresh install of whatever OS you're going to have on your lappy and you should be fine.

[Cortexian]

What kind of gaming are you planning of doing on that machine? Just do a fresh install of whatever OS you're going to have on your lappy and you should be fine.
Nothing hardcore, an RTS every now and then most likely. Possibly a couple MMORPG/MMO games.

Anyone know a really good Security Suite btw? my CA Internet Security is running out in a couple days... I've heard BitDefender is a pretty good setup.

[Amit]

Nothing hardcore, an RTS every now and then most likely. Possibly a couple MMORPG/MMO games.

Anyone know a really good Security Suite btw? my CA Internet Security is running out in a couple days... I've heard BitDefender is a pretty good setup.

That geforce 6150 definitely won't help you with RTS games. Maybe when ASUS comes out with it's portable videocards. Panda Titanium Antivirus+Firewall is an amazing solution. I've been using it since 2003 and have never gotten a virus on any of the computers that I have it on since then. Panda Software (http://www.pandasoftware.com)

The yearly subscription price is $49.95 but you can install it on up to 3 PCs at one time.

[Emmzee]

I recommend AVG for antivirus, and Windows 98 for firewall.

[Mr Buckshot]

Actually the Geforce 6150's compatibility is flawless, and its power is not that pathetic. It's still miles above many desktop PCI cards like the Radeon 9250. Just be safe by keeping settings at 640x480 or 800x600 on medium-low and you'll get 30 fps in most games. H2V is a no-no though, especially on Windows Vista. You can run it but even at 640x480 on lowest, it will hit single digit frames fairly often.

I'm sure this guy has a gaming-capable desktop already...he got his laptop as a gift - actually, it's a tablet PC, with a sexy and small 12.1" form factor. Anyway it's not like you'll find many dedicated video cards in such small laptops.

Now, just use the recovery discs if your laptop came with them. If not, you can buy them from HP for under $20.

[Cortexian]

Actually the Geforce 6150's compatibility is flawless, and its power is not that pathetic. It's still miles above many desktop PCI cards like the Radeon 9250. Just be safe by keeping settings at 640x480 or 800x600 on medium-low and you'll get 30 fps in most games. H2V is a no-no though, especially on Windows Vista. You can run it but even at 640x480 on lowest, it will hit single digit frames fairly often.

I'm sure this guy has a gaming-capable desktop already...he got his laptop as a gift - actually, it's a tablet PC, with a sexy and small 12.1" form factor. Anyway it's not like you'll find many dedicated video cards in such small laptops.

Now, just use the recovery discs if your laptop came with them. If not, you can buy them from HP for under $20.
Yes, my desktop will be used for most of my gaming, the only time I'll be gaming on my laptop is spur of the moment games. The recovery disks reinstall all the bloatware tbh. So thats a no-no, plus they cost $40+ here in Canada. Your absolutely right about it being a sexy small tablet though, its faster then most of the PC's at our school, except the new ones in our Multimedia lab, but only on the graphics side. For example, I needed to blow up a 30 inch by 30 inch poster to double that today in Communications Technologies class, the PC I was using could barely load the image into photoshop, whereas mine took about 30 seconds to load it, blow it up, save it, and copy it to a USB key for transfer back to the school computer for printing :awesome:.