Actually, I never used Rhino, lol. I used to use ProDesktop which is relatively beginner friendly.

3DS Max is definatly not what you want to be using at beginner levels - the only reason I use it is that I need to be able to use it ery well for my degree so all practise is good. And I can do fancy texturing as Martijn mentioned...

If you can get hold of it, Id definatly recommend ProDesktop.