So my Macbook has been getting slow recently. I’m actually surprised it lasted this long – despite every generation being better and bigger and faster, so far I’ve usually managed to push my laptops (all Apple, as my family’s been Mac-only since we got our first desktop computer around 1996) to the brink of their abilities in three years. The Macbook has now lasted me four, setting a new record!

It’s not that they stop working (my mom is still using my iBook G4, which is now 6 or 7 years old) but that apparently my habits are simply getting too much and things are starting to slow down to an annoying crawl: I usually have several little scripts running (like PodScrobble, TimeMachine, iAntiVirus, Caffeine, LaunchBar etc.) in the background while flipping between four to six different open programs (Gmail, Firefox, Socialite, VLC, iTunes etc.) at any given time.

When my burner broke (the first time I’ve ever had to use my AppleCare warranty, incidentally) a few months ago, the guy at the Genius Bar in the Apple Store noted that he’d never seen someone with so much stuff going on. That made me scale back, especially on the background processes, but only for a short while before all the optimization options became too tempting again… Oops?

I’ve also set up wireless access not just to the internet but also to an external harddrive which hosts my TimeMachine backup as well as iTunes library, which I assume is also using a lot of processing power. So yeah, I really only have myself to blame – but that doesn’t stop me from feeling that a smooth-running laptop is essential in my life.

I don’t have a car, don’t spend much money going out, generally don’t have a lot of expensive habits (chocolate, books and handmade stuff from Etsy are relatively cheap vices), so I’m seriously considering whether I can afford a new Macbook after Haiti, although I currently have no job lined up (and my iPhone 3G is also on the way out, battery-wise). I am so connected, so reliant on it – for entertainment, for information, for education, for friendship – that this seems like a luxury worth having.

(For the record: I’ve become a bit disenchanted with Apple in the past couple of years, but that’s mostly due to how they’re behaving with the iPhone – so while I might consider changing to an Android phone instead of a 4G, I don’t see myself using anything but an Apple laptop, at least until Apple reaches Microsoft-levels of evil.)

What do you think – do you use your laptop for as long as it lasts, or is this one area where new is not just shiny but necessary?