my new laptop

[EternalEnigma21]

I'm not the best versed computer guy in the world, and my wife needed a laptop for her work, so i went out and bought one...

I started looking around the 700 dollar range, and wound up doubling the price by the time I was done...

I want some opinions and feedback about what i bought, and wonder if its a good system or I just got sold...
I got an HP DV9000 series with a Core 2 Duo 5500, 2G ram, and dual 100G HDs @ 5000+- rpm.

They kept talking about the front end something... and it seems fast, but I'm not really doing anything with it.

I was disappointed that I couldn't really find any machines with any free decent software... you can build them, but you pay the same as if you just bought the software seperately (MS office, etc...)

its has a 17 inch screen, which I like, but its a little glossy and reflective in high light situations...

Anyway, I bought it for 1300 bucks... Could I have done alot better? The speakers are nice and it has a built in cam/mic combo... and I'm excited about the lightscribe feature... that sounds pretty cool...


Besides the feedback, are there any good sources for free software that I might enjoy? vista comp?