New Laptop! Any techno nerd advice?

[Unesh52]

It's good to be looking out at the escapist from a whole new vantage point, that being my new Satellite A665 by Toshiba. Now this is an advice thread, so for starters, I'd like to ask all the more technologically inclined members: Is this a good computer?

This is my first laptop and I bought it primarily for school, so I'll generally just being writing papers and doing presentations, but I'm hoping to get some entertainment value out of it too. Also, if it's important, I got it for 700$ almost exactly after geek squad set up and tax (600$ on the tag).

What kind of games do you think would work well on it?
What are some useful/fun programs and/or accessories I could get for it?
Any advice for a tech-newb as far as maintenance and usage go?

These questions really apply to any computer, so just tell me your favorite gadgets and gizmos you use on you computer if you have no idea what an A665 is. Also, does anyone know if Mozilla's Thunderbird program is any good? I was going to get the Windows mail client, but I remembered Thunderbird when I was downloading Firefox and now I'm on the fence.

I'm super excited about this thing (it's the only particularly functional computer in my house), thanks for any help you give me with it!

Edit: Also, I was going to get Windows Live Messenger so I could keep up with my GF while I'm away, but last time I installed it it seemed to come with a bunch of extra shit I didn't want, and for some reason every time I logged on after that Windows Explorer opened to a random (and empty for that matter) folder labeled "Microsoft" in my program files. I couldn't get it to stop. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Is there anything I could do or should I just find a different IM program? If the latter, which one?

Thanks again.

 

[ThaBenMan]

Don't drop it.

Don't spill water on it.

Don't hit it with a hammer.

.... yeah, that's all I got.

 

[Sleekgiant]

First off uninstall all anti-virus it comes with, strip it of shit programs then get AVG free and Comodo Firewall. Download Firefox and get a Steam account and have fun. Also set up multiple user accounts, one being an Admin with a code only you know so no one can install things you don't want.

 

[RUINER ACTUAL]

A brand and name says nothing if it is a good computer. What is the hardware inside?

 

[Unesh52]

A brand and name says nothing if it is a good computer. What is the hardware inside?

Processor: Intel Core i3 CPU M 350 @ 2.27GHz
RAM: 4 GB (3.8 GB usable) (DDR3 I think)
500 GB HDD

Really wish I could tell you about the graphics card and the sound card, but I'm astonishingly computer illiterate.

 

[RUINER ACTUAL]

A brand and name says nothing if it is a good computer. What is the hardware inside?

Processor: Intel Core i3 CPU M 350 @ 2.27GHz
RAM: 4 GB (3.8 GB usable) (DDR3 I think)
500 GB HDD

Really wish I could tell you about the graphics card and the sound card, but I'm astonishingly computer illiterate.

whats the rpm on the hdd and whats the gpu?

start < control panel < hardware and sound

 

[Johnnyallstar]

It's actually very similar to a low power desktop.

The i3 is a really toned down i7, with hyperthreading disabled, but you'll still get decent processing power out of it for a laptop.

It doesn't have a graphics card, it instead has an embedded graphics chip, which is going to drive you insane if you're thinking about doing any gaming beyond solitare and minesweeper. You may be able to play some games that aren't too graphics intensive, but not many. Yours is a fairly bare bones computer, not a gaming one.

Also, I'd immediately delete any "bloatware" which is basically junk progams you're never going to use, but preloaded onto your laptop.

First off uninstall all anti-virus it comes with, strip it of shit programs then get AVG free and Comodo Firewall. Download Firefox and get a Steam account and have fun. Also set up multiple user accounts, one being an Admin with a code only you know so no one can install things you don't want.

That's also a very good idea. It probably comes standard with Norton or Macafee, which is mediocre, but you have to pay for it. AVG Free is good, Avira Free is better in my opinion, and both are better than Norton or Macafee. You can find both at Cnet.com

As for an internet browser, do NOT use Internet Explorer. It's a gateway to tons of viruses because it's part of the OS. Firefox is great, Google Chrome is very good, and some people swear by it. But either, or both is better than IE.

 

[muckinscavitch]

If you want to help us diagnose what your pc can do, go to "run" and type "dxdiag". You can find graphics card information there, and pretty much everything else we may need

 

[Esspytood]

-snip- 'link got itself broken'

 

[oxiclean]

install chrome (faster than firefox and more secure, and extensible)

use thunderbird if you want a desktop mail client (i use gmail's webmail interface with google talk installed so i get popups for the emails), or just use webmail.

install peazip, a free archiving tool that does rar, zip, 7z, and their own proprietary PEA.

feeddemon if you use a lot of RSS

skype

revo uninstaller for those programs that dont seem to fully uninstall.

either paint.net (low-power photo editing program) or GIMP (more like photoshop)

manycam for chatroulette trolling

openoffice if you dont have have office



all of these things are free.

 

[xDarc]

I don't roll with AVGfree or any firewall programs. Firefox+noscript. It's like a condom for copulation with the internet.

 

[Mr. Purple]

<color=purple> Well, recently I have been using new organizational programs, which you might enjoy seeing as this is for your school work.
<color=purple>
A couple good programs for organizing your desktop would be Bumptop and/or Fences. Each is very helpful, but I don't think it is possible to use them together.

<color=purple>
Other than that, I use several other helpful programs that you may want to look into such as Winmend and Rainmeter.
<color=purple>
The utilization of these programs can completely change your experience on your laptop.

<color=purple>
Also you might want to protect your new computer. I have a free version of both AVG and Norton antivirus. I use than both and they are enough to keep your computer safe if you know what you are doing.

Now I can't really help you much further without looking into your computer model, but good luck.

 

[Unesh52]

A brand and name says nothing if it is a good computer. What is the hardware inside?

Processor: Intel Core i3 CPU M 350 @ 2.27GHz
RAM: 4 GB (3.8 GB usable) (DDR3 I think)
500 GB HDD

Really wish I could tell you about the graphics card and the sound card, but I'm astonishingly computer illiterate.

whats the rpm on the hdd and whats the gpu?

start < control panel < hardware and sound

That took forever. 7200RPM and according to the program I downloaded call GPU-Z, the name of my GPU is "Intel HD Graphics", but it had another category labeled GPU and that value said "Arrandale."

Does that help?

 

[RUINER ACTUAL]

A brand and name says nothing if it is a good computer. What is the hardware inside?

Processor: Intel Core i3 CPU M 350 @ 2.27GHz
RAM: 4 GB (3.8 GB usable) (DDR3 I think)
500 GB HDD

Really wish I could tell you about the graphics card and the sound card, but I'm astonishingly computer illiterate.

whats the rpm on the hdd and whats the gpu?

start < control panel < hardware and sound

That took forever. 7200RPM and according to the program I downloaded call GPU-Z, the name of my GPU is "Intel HD Graphics", but it had another category labeled GPU and that value said "Arrandale."

Does that help?

HDD is good, but I think the jury is still out on the GPU...

 

[Johnnyallstar]

A brand and name says nothing if it is a good computer. What is the hardware inside?

Processor: Intel Core i3 CPU M 350 @ 2.27GHz
RAM: 4 GB (3.8 GB usable) (DDR3 I think)
500 GB HDD

Really wish I could tell you about the graphics card and the sound card, but I'm astonishingly computer illiterate.

whats the rpm on the hdd and whats the gpu?

start < control panel < hardware and sound

That took forever. 7200RPM and according to the program I downloaded call GPU-Z, the name of my GPU is "Intel HD Graphics", but it had another category labeled GPU and that value said "Arrandale."

Does that help?

It's an embedded chip on the motherboard, not a card in and of itself. Not as powerful as a full blown card, but most likely won't fry out your system with heat, either.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

First off uninstall all anti-virus it comes with, strip it of shit programs then get AVG free and Comodo Firewall. Download Firefox and get a Steam account and have fun. Also set up multiple user accounts, one being an Admin with a code only you know so no one can install things you don't want.

AVG and Comodo are brilliant.