OK, but you could still have bought XP (or get it for free) and put it on a new laptop. Has this occurred to you?? Computer technology (and price) has been improving so fast, there is simply no reason not to buy a new one after 4 years. All our laptops working in the house because I can fix them, but every once in a while we buy a new one...
You didn't specify your needs. I assume just basic charting and browsing. I personally rather buy 2 different size cheap laptops than one expensive one, for the same price. Let's say a bigger one (15-17")for home use, a smaller (12-13") for travel. If one dies, there is the other one right away... If you drop it or pure coffee on it, just throw it into the wastebin, no problem. But seriosuly, just buy a new one, even the cheap ones are better than a used 4 year old. And if you have an old OS preference, you can always put it on a new computer or make it dual booted....
But why would I do that if the computer still runs perfectly? Especially when I'm so close to making it into Guinness!!
Now I am curious, what laptop is it? The answer would be that the new computer would be faster, lighter and brighter with better display. Also less heat... And no matter what you say, softwares over the years slow down the computer, so unless in every few years you reinstall the system, it is considerably slower now than 10 years ago... Hey, my email is 18 years old and I am definitely going for the Guinness if I don't die soon...
I've always used Fujitsu laptops. Where I am you can always sell your Fujitsu laptop for a higher price than that of other makers. What I used to do is when new models came out i'd buy a previous model directly from Fujitsu and sell the one I had. So every 2 years I wound up getting a new PC for about half price. I know I'm living on borrowed time, and wouldn't do it if I had only one computer running while trading. I am going to buy 3 new computers shortly. Just waiting for more reviews on 10 to see if it's worth waiting for 10.1.
Do you need a laptop, or can you make a desktop work? If so you can get a pretty powerful machine for less than that laptop and it will probably last longer as well. @WinstonTJ made a solid post about using a refurbished PC and how it could handle everything he threw at it with ease. http://www.elitetrader.com/et/index.php?threads/trading-pc-faq-all-you-need-to-know.283797/
This is not necessarily true -- it depends on the application, and where your bottlenecks (if any) lie. In some respects, technology is now improving very slowly -- much more slowly than the 1990's or early 2000's -- simply due to the physics of shrinking chip features when they're already so small. In other areas, (e.g., the Intel/Micron XPoint JV and the new models of computation that will open up as a result), things continue to advance at a rapid clip. Of course, many users may not realize how much of a speed improvement they'd experience if they upgraded. One question to consider is: how fast do the applications I use run on my current machine? If you're noticing a lot of delays, you might experience a big improvement by upgrading. But even then you have to have some sense of what's causing the bottlenecks; e.g., if the bottleneck is due to single-threaded CPU performance and your application can't use more than one core, then you might only realize a modest (though tangible) jump over a 4-year-old machine.
Especially with an SSD, the hardware should be pretty durable, even the batteries nowadays are a lot better. The fan/hinge/body damage are usually the first problems you will encounter. My laptop fan was not running smooth after about 3 years, I had some crazy geek tear it apart, clean out the inside and oil the fan, only $15 here in China. Been running fine for a year since.
About 2 yrs ago I bought a LARGE laptop, top of the line. Running off of it 2 monitors with the laptop touch screen in the middle... 3 screens. I run tradestation and IB's TWS, both kinda hogs. For the last year the fan has been running noticeably more and more, to the point that I am ready to toss it in the garbage and get a new one.
if your trading is profitable, buying a new computer every two or three years is worthwhile and does not cost much. Also they are productive tools， so I will get the latest and one of the best ones.