Are dedicated video cards mostly for gamers?

I'm afraid I haven't bought a computer in a while and I find myself not totally understanding my choices. I am planning to buy a Dell E1550 and am hoping to keep it as close to $1250 as possible (after the coupon)--or an XPS 140 (I haven't decided which yet). I need a computer on which I can do word processing, store music, use the web (for work and for fun), store some images (though not a lot and with little or no editing), watch streaming video (baseball games mostly), play dvds and sometimes burn them, and perhaps tune and record some tv.

Here are my technical questions about graphics cards.

1) Am I correct that the XPS does not have a dedicated graphics card--and is that going to be bad for my purposes--given what I need?

2) If I go with the E1550, should I upgrade the fancier video card and if so, how do you decide between uprading to 128 mb or 256 mb?

3) Will I need the better graphics card to run future utilities in the next 3-4 years (probably the life of this laptop for me)?

4) Do these video cards zap battery life?

In case it makes a difference; on either machine, I will be getting 1 GB of memory; on the xps I would get the Pentium M 740 Processor and on the 1550, I would get the Core™ Duo processor T2300.

Thank you for your help.

Trish

 

1. xps140 does not have a dedicated vidcard

2/3. for your needs, you don't need a dedicated vidcard. a dedicated vidcard's advantage is that it can translate 3d graphics without hogging system resources to do so. none of the stuff you listed is 3d (streaming video, tv, dvds, etc. are all 2D). one thing to think about is that if you know you want to upgrade to windows vista ASAP and want to be able to run all the graphical bells and whistles, then you want a dedicated gpu.

4. notebooks with dedicated video cards will have shorter battery life than the identical machine with an integrated video card.

 

Thanks. That helps a lot.

 

I believe it has been confirmed that the Integrated intel 950 GMA will also be able to run Windows Vista. wish i could find where i read this article. But it does.

EDIT : A ha! Found Something.

http://www.intel.com/business/bss/products/client/vistasolutions/mobile.htm

At the bottom of the page they say it supports it. Hope this helps towards your decision.