New laptop with Win 7 Prem?

I am about to purchase an Acer Aspire Laptop, Intel Core i3,17" screen, 4GB DDR3 Ram with Win7Premium 64Bit loaded on sale for $499.00 at Staples. This won't go on sale until Sunday the 11th of April so I have time to change directions if needed.
1. Is this a good buy?
2. Any suggestions on what are the 1st steps after unloading all the junk it comes with besides charging the battery up? This is my 1st laptop
3. Any other recommendations would be appreciated.. TIA

 

Got the same one that you mentioned. Not a lot of junk on it at all. Was surprised at that. I just updated Adobe, and installed Adobe Flash and Shock-wave and my AV plus Spybot Search and Destroy, SpywareBlaster, MalwareBytes and got all the Windows updates and have been running smoothly since then.

 

I would advise you to keep it simple. Install MS Security Essentials, WOT, Secunia PSI, and use the built-in firewall.
Forget all the AV suites but install Malwarebytes and run it once a week.
I have used this set-up for about a year now on the RC and Home Premium and never found any malware or virus that has got in.

Roger

 

Go for it!