will the 950GM be enough?

yeah you'll be fine. more than fine. don't plan on running vista thou...

i thought the gma950 was spec'ed to run vista fine? minus the glass.

Yes, my understanding is that the 950 can run vista fine. (not with all the visual goodies up all the way, but it'll run no problem)

How do laptops deal with the monitors being HDCP compliant? Isn't that a big issue for desktop folks wanting to run Vista?

Frankly I'm not sure how HDCP compliance will be handled with laptops.
Sorry

i don't think it hasn't been delt with yet!

I wouldn't worry about it at all if you don't play games or do any video or image editing.

I also wouldn't worry about Vista compatability. Microsoft is smart enough to know that a very large majority of owners of computers do not game and do not have very good video cards, and many use integrated graphics. I don't think that they are going to come out with a new operating system that is not able to run on older parts. A GeForce2, it would be understandable that it wouldn't run; but I don't think that Microsoft is going to make a new operating system that is unable to run on still new technology; especially knowing that many notebooks are made to be very lightwieght, thus don't have a very good graphics card.

copy of what? my comparison pics? I'll have to find them when I get home.

OK, if price isn't a factor in this, if you don't game or do video editing, is the dedicated graphics card still a good idea? Will you get any benefit from it? Maybe the cool Vista interface only?

I guess I'm asking how much of a tradeoff in battery consumption and system heat is the X1300 or X1400? If the card is only good for gaming, and will simply drain battery life and create heat, then I'll skip it.

the dedicated vidoe card will certainly allow you to turn on the goodies in vista more. I belive the ATI cards will give you a better picture during video playback of certain sources. (DVD, H264, more?) The ATI cards may offer improved battery life in some situations.

Overall, if I were not in any way a gamer, but price were no object, I think I would still get the x1400. I'm not completely sure that it's more energy efficient, but I have heard good things.

If I were really taking this moeny is no object thing seriously, I'd buy both the x1400 and the GMA950, play some movies, and drain some batterys and return the one that looked worse or had worse battery life. (the x1400 may have better video quality, the GMA950 will NOT have better vido quality... its ATI or tie. On battery life, I think it depends on what you're doing.... one is probably better for watching video and the other for doing office tasks.... or one could be superior in both.)

After writing all that, I've realized that there isn't much useful information in it, just a bunch of conjecture. I'm not sure that anyone can really tell you which is better for battery life without having 2 systems side by side and actually testing it. (To my knowledge this has not been done on either the 1505 or the 1705 to compare GMA950 vs x1400)

That's actually good info, DarthPierce. Seems like folks had made it out that the video card would DEFINITELY eat up battery life pretty significantly. If it's a close race, then I don't mind getting it for future apps. I just didn't want to sacrifice my battery life and then not gain anything since I don't game.

Are there any sites that you think might have compared notebook battery life with integrated vs. dedicated video?

Edit: I haven't found that specific info, but I've found 2 articles on notebookreview.com that talk about the comparison. One says "The flipside is that integrated GPUs run very cool and can substantially improve battery life." The other mentions that he's heard (as of February writing) that the 950GM is "rumored" to be able to run Aero glass on Vista.

The posts referring to integrated video eating battery like no tomorrow are likely referring to powerful cards like the 7800 go. That will easily eat an hour or more off each charge of a I9400. The x1400, however, is much less powerful and consequently much less power hungry.

I would NOT recommend any video card ending in a number higher than 700 (x800, x1800, 6800, 7800, etc) to a non-gamer. These vedeo cards are "enthusiast" cards and are very good for gaming, but very bad for battery life.

My understanding with running aero on vista on integrated video is that it must be GMA950, not GMA900... And it can do it, but as you increase the number of active windows, it will slowly begin to lag the system graphically. (having 4 windows open and dragging a fifth across them would be jerky)

GMA950 is the right decision for you.

So you're saying you wouldn NOT recommend the X1300 or X1400 to me if I'm a non-gamer, but I have the money and am looking forward to Vista, correct?

If you are a non-gamer, but you are planning to upgrade to vista, and the monetary difference is trivial to you, I'm saying that I'm not sure which solution would offer you the best battery life. (getting a 7800 though would certainly offer you much worse battery life)

The x1300 and x1400 MAY offer better video decoding, and MAY offer better battery life while watching video.
The GMA950 MAY offer better battery life for office tasks.

You will not be throwing away "a lot" of battery life with the GMA950, x1300, or x1400 options. You WILL throw away a lot of battery life with a 7800.

Additionally, I would note that a budget concious non-gamer should get a GMA950.