old laptop: p3 or celeron?

[mctriple]

Hey guys,

I'm looking to pick up an old laptop, probably on ebay. I don't want a powerhouse that will play my latest FPS games or anything. Something that will let me watch divx movies on the tv would be nice (my very old p1 133mhz, 32mb ram laptop won't play them, although it does have s-video.. not that it can play video.. lol), and maybe rather old games like the Civilization series. Nothing TOO demanding, right? Also chatting, browsing, maybe a little photoshopping to edit photos while on the run.

I've come to a few options. Unfortunately, my price range is around $500 at most, because I want to build a new gaming rig pretty soon, too. This laptop is more of a convenience than something I want to pay big bucks for.

I see two types of laptops in this price range.. older Pentium 3 (~1ghz) laptops and newer Celeron 2.xxghz ones.

Which would be best for my applications? I know that the P3s have more cache, but would the celeron's higher fsb and clock speed outweigh this?

I skipped the P3 stage (p2->p4) and have never had a celeron, so I have no first-hand experience with either of these chips.

Thanks!

 

[majistic]

Well alot of new laptops come with the Centrinos but I have no knowledge of those seeing as how I never work with laptops. But good look on the hunt.

 

[mctriple]

NOT new! the first word in the title is "old"

pentium 3 vs celeron.. not centrino thanks tho

 

[SHAWN]

Im not a fan of the celerons but from 2ghz up, they are the older style pentiums called celerons. I would go with the celeron over the PIII.

 

[mctriple]

which older style pentiums are they? they only have 128k l2 and they have 400mhz fsb?

 

[Sui]

believe p3 was 100 or 133 fsb. It should be able to power what you want it to, but do you really need a laptop for those things? I have an old p3 laptop, and the thing gets hot doing just about anything. Only real use I have for it now is for GPS/maps and maybe if I get bored I'll cruse around find a open wireless network, go through any files I can get into. Not that I do anything major, I just like to snoop.

 

[sytosis]

P3........celerons Blow

 

[mctriple]

"P3........celerons Blow"
P3s aren't exactly cutting-edge technology

4x the fsb and twice the clockspeed don't make up for an extra 128k L2?

celerons are basically older style pentiums.. like.. p1 or p2? p3s are "older style pentiums". heck, my p4 1.7 is just like a current celeron, pretty much.

 

[mctriple]

and yah.. i really do need a laptop. sure, i could put my old pc next to the tv to watch movies and whatnot easily.. but the thing is.. my woman wants one, so i "need" one, and i'm trying to make myself believe that i want one too.. it's best that way.

lol

 

[synergy]

If your price range is $500 then you should look at Office Depot. They have a Compaq R3000Z for $400 after rebates. Out of pocket cost is $680 so if you can come up with a few extra bucks for now this would definately beat getting a used one.

Click here to view

Comes with
AMD Athlon XP-M 3000+, 512MB DDR, 40GB Drive, CDRW/DVD Combo

10/100 + 56k + 802.11g, 15" XGA, 32MB GeForce, XP Home, 1-Yr Warranty

This is a steal deal so I would act fast if you are going to get it!