Graphics for laptops: what does supported *really* mean when I buy a Thinkpad?

Whenever I tell geeks I can't run SL on my current laptop since the 1.14/5 update, and that it has 32MB of graphics memory they tend to guffaw at me - I've tried everything and it's pretty unusable. So I need to buy a new one. No desktop advice please - need a laptop - and yep, I've been through all the other tuning hints etc. I think...

What I don't understand is how to interpret the Linden System Requirements for laptops. E.g. with my current laptop, the card identifies as an ATI Mobility Radeon 9000. The requirements page says that:

"ATI Radeon 9600, X600, or better" is supported, but that FireGL's may work but aren't. I take very seriously the very often warnings from Lindens in these forums that unsupported cards may work now, but if they break, tough, and I DON'T want to buy an unsupported one. But how do I know what's "or better" above in the context of a laptop?

I'd like to buy a Lenovo Thinkpad and the current choice of cards seems to be:

256MB ATI Mobility FireGL V5250
256MB ATI Mobility FireGL V5200
128MB ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 HyperMemory
64MB ATI Mobility Radeon X1300

and some new ones which I don't seem to be able to buy with:

128MB nVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M

If I take the system requirements above at face value, does this mean that the only "supported" cards guaranteed to stay working are the Radeons above? Is a Mobility Radeon actually even a real Radeon, or are even they not supported? I'm interested in anecdotal comments like "oh no, the FireGL/Quadro works for me" too, and I see some when I search, but primarily I really want to understand which of the cards above (if any??) are actually supported.

For mere mortals (ok I admit it!) it's pretty hard to understand such scanty information on what's supported when blinking at a list of laptops. It's impossible to change once you order the wrong thing, and surely LL want us laptop-only users to have some guarantees too? Can anyone help clear my achey head, so I know that if I order laptop X I won't be told "not supported"?

Thanks!

... oh, and which of the above graphics cards will I in practice have the best success with on SL now and in the future, and go ahead and BUY (when I win the lottery)!

I wouldn't buy a new laptop for sl with any of these cards. The best choices seem to be the Nvidia Go 7600 and 7900. These are not easy to find.

If you really want something, Nvidia just released the 8M series of graphics chips for Notebooks. 8 as in "8 Series" or the 8800 family, and M as in Mobile.

Given the problems between SL & ATI, it's a game of chance whether SL works or not.

ibuypower.com

back to the OP, ive had the worst luck with any of the mobile ati cards, since its generally known that sl doesnt like the fire gl cards my bet would be on the 128MB ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 HyperMemory