Woohoo! Asus M6B is on it's way!

Couldn't wait until Monday! Just ordered my very first notebook after months of searching. While it may not be "perfect", I'm hoping it'll surpass all my expectations - or at least live up to them. LOL I don't think the perfect laptop for me exists yet, so this is as close as it gets.

Asus M6BNE
1.8 Dothan
1024 RAM (two sticks)
64 MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 (that's the imperfect part - wanted 128)
60 GB Hitachi @7200 rpm
Netgear wireless
DVD+- RW dual format/CDRW
Optical bay battery (adding up to 8.5 hours total)
Windows XP pro installed and tuned (149.00 - comes with cd)
Built-in card reader
13.9" x 10.9" x 0.86"-1.34" (WxDxH,)
5.72 lbs
Two year added warranty (total 3 years)

Should be shipped out no later than next Friday. Ordered from Geared2play.

Can't wait!
Finally the months of indecision are over. It's a done deal.

Thank you all for your help and for "listening" to me ramble about it all.

Now, for more questions - you didn't think that part was over, did you?

I plan on installing Firefox and Thunderbird to use rather than IE. Open office, too, rather than windows office suite. What are some other recommendations installations? Shouldn't need to check for stuff like drivers right? Remember I'm new, please! I don't want to junk up the hard drive. But I do want to add programs that will help get stuff done efficiently.

What about software for picture management - DVD/CD writing? Any recommendations? Gotta make a list for Newegg soon.

Hard to relax! First notebook. Yea! Okay, I'll try. Whew. Deep breath - here we go.

I knew it would come with the software for the cd/dvd burning, but didn't know if it would be decent. The only experience I have is cd and I use musicmatch and realplayer to do those. I'm trying to go as microsoftless as possible. Dunno why. The monopoly bugs me. And since I downloaded SP2 and my pc stopped reading my camera cards, it's really ticked me off. Haven't been able to get the card readers to work right. I'd try Linux if I knew more about it. What can you tell me about Mandrake?

Now, I have another question - I ordered it with xp pro installed. So, will all the drivers be installed already? I'm assuming, yes. If so, how difficult and where would I find info on uninstalling any not good ones? I'm guessing windows uninstall - but it's a guess.

It's got the netgear 802.11G wireless.

I'm loving Firefox on my pc. Thunderbird - I have POP - and it's working well for me. Seems faster, more efficient. Now, in January we're switching to dsl since I'm doing a couple of online courses and am tired of waiting on the dial-up speeds. Wonder if I should try to put those on cd instead of downloading for the notebook? Hmmm...

Security, I just have whatever came with my pc - Norton, McAffee - I don't even remember now. I'll check out the ones you mentioned. I think my firewall is just the downloaded one from SP2.

Do you find IE still necessary since some sites don't support firefox?

SpeedSwitchXP - I'll definitely have to check it out with that high endorsement! LOL

Aha. Wouldn't have thought of that. Ummm... how do you do that? Is there like a huge downloadable book that would tell me how to do this on the Asus? ANd if you do disable, but need to use something, is it relatively easy to enable?

You know, I know I've seen enable and disable stuff in Windows. The sad truth is I've never liked Windows and haven't taken the time to find out more about it except the bare minimum for getting around. Guess I should fix that, huh?

I have resisted windows to the point that it's doing me harm! LOL

I knew it looked familiar! Duh! Yeah, I have ambled across it before. Hey, it's late and I'm on drugs that make me stupid. LEGAL DRUGS! Neurontin. It's really messing me up. Anyhow, thank you very much!

And yes, I am kinda anal about stuff like that. Want it to run as fast as it can (can't catch me I'm the ginger... you get the idea). Awesome link, btw. Just the kinda thing I'm looking for.

aamsel - yep, this is the widescreen. THere was a choice of that and a 15.1 with higher resolution. However, I won't know the difference, seeing as it's my first laptop. And my eyes need all the help they can get.

Can't help with the vendor's and which panel, tho'.

Hey, thanks. Congrats to you too! Wonder if it'll really be here in a week!?! Let us know how long it take for yours to come in from order to receipt, if you can.

Hooligan - noted. Thanks. Guess I'm going to get familiar with this by doing a little maintenance on my neglected desktop first. Thank you for the info.

Hmm... I posted a reply and it disappeared. I'll try again.

Good luck with your search. I've looked for months and finally made a decision. While I'd have liked it to be a bit more portable, it's impossible to get it with all that I felt was necessary for me. But I do think this is a good compromise between portability and features. I hope so, anyway!

On a side note, my cc company called today to make sure it wasn't a fraudulent purchase! Over a year of virtual inactivity and then - WHAM! LOL Good to know they were checking!

What exactly are omega drivers? I did a google search but it just pulls up sites where you can download. What are the benefits?

And what are beta drivers?

As far as downloading the omega driver for the graphics, does this one look okay?

Asus Radeon 8.2 WHQL. Guess a link would be good here.

http://drivers.soft32.com/driver/dow...eon-66271.html