My wife is still rocking a 2008 Aluminum Macbook (C2D, 4gb Ram, upgraded 1tb HDD) with no complaints. After college and until recently I'd been using whatever work gave me which put me on around a ~3 year upgrade cycle (Dell D630, Lenovo T410, HP EliteBook, now a Dell E7240 ultrabook). What they gave me didn't matter all that much as I would only take it off the dock when going on work trips... for casual use at home leisure travlel I'd use my iPad/Android tablet (of which I upgraded about every year).

Recently I bought myself a closeout MS Surface Pro which is ideal for travel, replacing both the work laptop and personal tablet. It's not an excellent tablet (weight and app ecosystem) but even on my other tablets my use has always been 75%+ in the browser, so using 90%+ in the browser on the Surface Pro isn't too big of a shift. As a laptop replacement it does fine as well, running full Office/Outlook and typing with the Type/Power cover (which I only use when traveling and chose one depending on the length of my flights) is leaps and bounds above touchscreen or most small bluetooth keyboards. To consolidate into one device for everything is well worth the tablet shortcomings.