What's the real difference between 220m and 260m video cards?

I am in the market for a new laptop and I am very tempted by the $999 G72 at best buy. It has
the Nvidia 260m video card and 6 GB of ram. My second choice is the N90Sc-A1 at gentech for $1549. It has the 18.4" screen, blueray player and bluetooth, but only has 4 GB of ram and the Nvidia 220m video card. However, it does have the Asus warranties which I understand is much better than the best buy warranty.
I do not do heavy gaming, just adventure games and a little flight simulator every not and then. I would play the flight sim on my home computer anyway, since the laptop I have now can't really handle it.
Mostly it will be used for reading books and other papers, including technical documents for my job. I also will be using it for entertainment such as movies, videos and mp3's. I do want some horsepower though, so I can multitask, I may have as many as 3 or 4 web browsers open, all with multiple tabs open. I will also have books open and maybe winamp running all at the same time.
TIA, all comments and advice welcome.

 

The 220M can still play Flight Simulator as it is a decent mid tier card. But if you want something that will really book for the price, go with the G72. $1,000 for a GTX 260M equipped notebook is a great deal.

 

The 220m is eerily similar to the 9600M GT. Only the name has been changed to protect Nvidia's sales. For an productivity and entertainment system, it's a perfectly acceptable card.

The lower RAM will also not really be noticeable for office use and movie watching. The N90 will be a good choice if you are after a system primarily for entertainment and you don't mind the weight. If you want a good gamer, look at Newegg for options on the G51 or G7x laptops. These will cost a bit more than the Best Buy model, but the extra features and the full warranty make up for the price difference.

 

I have an F50sf with the 220M card and I'm happy with it. It's nowhere as good as the 260M, but it's fine for casual gaming. It handles Far Cry on high settings with 4AA, for example. Plays other older games like Painkiller Black very well. Have not tried Crysis or the newer games, but I'm sure they would be playable at low or medium settings. Nice card overall, seems to run well and gets warm, but not hot. Sounds like it would be fine for your purposes, though I agree that $1000 for a system w/a 260M is a good deal, I, myself, did not want so large a screen. My F40 has a 16" and that's plenty big.

Good luck whatever way you go!

 

g60 is 16", has the 260m and is 900$

 

40m, of course!