Laptop graphics are always a minefield of barely adequate hardware. I really hope this, as well as Nvidia's ION chipsets see an end to these dark days.
Because "adequate" can have vastly different meanings, depending on what you use your GPU for. I use it mostly for eye-candy at the GUI level. I play a bit with Google Earth and that's about all. My Intel GMA can do that just fine.
If, however, I were into heavy gaming, I would find this setup unusable (down to the fact I don't run Windows).
I am not sure how well an Intel GMA would fare if it were used as a number cruncher. I suspect it wouldn't excel, but, compared to x86 vector hardware, even a lowly GPU should hold it's own well.
For example, I can't imagine Bink being hardware accelerated anytime soon.