Updated: How powerful is my new laptop?

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4Ghz
Vista Premium
4GB shared DDR2 at 667Mhz (yes that much)
Hi Res 17" screen (1920*1200)
256 NVIDIA Geforce 8600M Gt
160GB HDD (5400 rpm)
8x Cd/DVD RW +/-
Hd audio 2.0
Intel a/g Mini-card(best they had)
2 Megapixel web cam (intergrated)
Norton 15m
3 yr warranty
Office 2007 Student, Wireless Logitech V220 Mouse
Works 8

Good or not?
i heard that Vista needs 1gb of ram True?

ok so i changed it to a Dual 500gb HD (250 each HD) that better?

you have a good laptop with tons of RAM and very slow hard drive. If your drive isn't partitioned and have Vista installed then if you fill it even with only 80 gigs of movies then my 800ghz laptop will beat your at any benchmarks you can mention.. lol.
Stick 150 gigs of movies in it and it'll take 20 minutes to even boot up.
So, hopefully you have a piece of that drive set only for the OS, which I bet you don't :)

most of its features are very good but some fatures like the cd/dvd drive could be better.......... just keep it up to date and it should be a pretty good computer......... yes vista does need a little over 1 GB of ram

Not bad. Search Google for free benchmark testing software. That will really tell you its capabilities.

It would be much more powerful if it were running XP, something you should consider.

The 8600M GT is pretty powerful, but because it's only got a 128 bit memory interface, it is belived that it will not perform that good on a screen resolution as high as the one you are getting.

In other words, an 8600M GT is a good choice for screens up to 15.4 inches, but for a 17 incher or greater, an Nvidia 7900GS or higher would be a much better choice because of it's 256 bit memory interface.

Of course, everything I just said applies only if you plan to run games at your native resolution. If you don't care about that, then your system is a pretty darn good one. If you do care, then the best thing to do is wait for the 8800M card to come out.