I've run these very well on my netbook, most on high settings, so a laptop with more than a 1.66GHz Atom and 2 GB memory should do even better:

Defcon (excellent RTS, based on global thermonuclear war from War Games)
Freespace 2 with the FSO mod (looks great)
Haegeonia (space RTS, very nice)
Battlezone 1 & 2
Apache vs Havoc and EECH
Independence War 2 - Edge of Chaos (space sim)
Nikopol: Secrets of the Immortals (point/click sci fi adventure, and pretty new at that)
Blade Runner
Dangerous Waters
Heavy Gear (1, don't think I got 2 to run well for some reason)
Dune 2000


Here is a tracking thread with a ton of games for netbooks with some comments, so a laptop should be even better off:

http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/netbook_playability_thread/_/1

Gog.com is a good place to find older games very cheap (like EECH).