laptop audio

[PaulieO]

I know audio for laptops are all pretty crappy, but I was wondering if anyone could enlighten me. Especially for audio for the 845MP chipset. It is based on the AC97 codec and from what I understand different manufacturers have chosen different (cards?) to work with it? For example the Toshiba uses a Yamaha codec chip and the Dell 8200 is all software? I don't have a good grasp of the concepts and I can't find a website that puts it all together. Thanks