Laptop buying advice forum: Does a graphics card matter at all if I don't play games?

Fairly good battery time and life along with the lower models of the ATI and Nvidia (such as 9200, 7200, etc.) give you the nice AERO boost without increasing power consumption much.
Bob

You do not mention the age of your computer but if it is any time recent,like the last few years, it will almost certainly have sufficient speed and capability to play games using it's on board video chip.

There will be no trouble playing games using word or cards as their principal function. Should you try to play games, such as driving race cars etc. the game on installation will most likely warn you of any shortcomings in your hardware set up.

Trying to play games without sufficient hardware performance will not do any damage to your system, just unistall it.

I renovate ten year old computers for donating to older people and these play games quite happily,so, game on!!!

I agree with you the benefits of getting better graphics on a laptop TODAY is somewhat dubious for a lot of users, but I have to say that the 845 chipset was junk even back in the day. It barely ran the basic 2D Windows XP graphics well without bogging down the CPU. Opening a context menu would have a noticeable delay in Windows XP using that graphics chipset. Even if you use a word processor and a web browser that is annoying!

The modern integrated chipsets can not only handle the relatively low end 3d graphics of Vista, but do Blu-ray playback and play quite a few games at 1280x1024. Dedicated graphics would still be better for games, but unlike the older integrated solutions the GMA 4500HD actually can actually run the latest version of Windows smoothly and more.

Furthermore, I would disagree that the Aere graphics in Vista are nothing except useless eye candy. The hoverover previews on the taskbar can be rather useful in identifying windows that you want to switch to.

That's why I'm looking for a laptop and not a desktop. In most places, however, I should have access to an outlet, so battery life isn't vital. However, money is, especially in this economy, so I want to waste as little as possible, and if I can save on not having to buy a graphics card, I'd love to.

Probably the most intensive thing I do on my computer is video chats (Skype and MSN), YouTube videos, and listening to music using iTunes. I do compose music using a computer, but I primarily use my more powerful home desktop for that. In terms of the graphics in Vista, I'll probably install XP over it anyway, so I'm not concerned about that. This computer will be primarily be my work computer, although it will also be used for web surfing. From what I read here, this probably doesn't need anything more than the included graphics card.

Thanks to everyone who helped.