My laptop is just a cheapie, $400 laptop. I think it's a dimension, but I really don't know. I know it's not a performance model, but it still seems slow.
It's amazing to me how cheap you can buy a fully featured computer, even more so how cheap you can buy a full featured laptop for these days. I remember in the 90's a full featured computer was about $3,000 once you figured in the monitor and printer. Then they got faster (and cheaper!). How often can you say that? I remember when the price went below $1k, that was a big deal. There was a lot of talk about how much Microsoft charged for Windows and what was going to happen to their price when it went below $800. Then it went below that, and then halved again.
We have different memories of computers in the '90s, Gigem.
I got my first personal computer after I got back from Korea (where I used a PC every day) in 1988. It was an IBM PS1 (?) with a 129
Mb Kb (thanks, Mr. Tulip) hard drive that I got at Sears for under $300. There were obviously much more expensive ones available.
I was on either my 2nd or 3rd PC by 1993, when I was assigned to West Point. The head of our Mapping, Charting, and Geodesy group, whose whole profession revolved around computers, said about getting a new one: "Get the $300 computer. It won't be the best, but it will do what you need it to do. When you need a new one, get another $300 computer."
I'm talking desktops here. I don't like laptops or briefcases. When I have to use one I will, with a mouse, but I don't enjoy using them at all. My wife has a Dell laptop that I've had to take to summer teacher workshops. I hate it. Not because it's a Dell, but because it's a laptop.
Anyway, my current HP Pavillion (tower CPU) is probably going on 8 or 9 years, and it works fine for what I need it to do. (Actually, its monitor failed after the warranty expired and I got a replacement from Acer.) It--the original computer setup--cost more in the range of $400, IIRC. So, inflation.
All the students where I teach are issued, to keep, Google Chromebooks. I'm not sure what we're paying for those, but it's got to be in the range of $250-300, I would think. I wouldn't give $25 for one. It is a piece of junk, as far as I'm concerned.