PC's maybe Apple makes some pretty solid laptops that have great lifespans and durability
Yeah....but even Mac-based systems always had their top performance computers as desktops/towers...not laptops.
Like I said....there are pretty powerful laptops out there from most manufacturers...I'm just saying that given the option, most of the very high-end performance systems tend NOT to be laptops.
AFA longevity....my original DAW tower is 12 years old...still runs like new, and because it is a purpose-built DAW and not an every-day computer...it is still faster than some more current computer models.
I also bet it's still running strong 10 years from now.
Same thing with the second DAW tower I just put into service.
Unlike most folks, I avoid upgrades like the plague.
The only time I see a need for an upgrade is when the current system is not doing what I need it to do, but a lot of people just upgrade for the sake of the upgrade, which often forces a lot of things to be changed/reconfigured in order to keep pace with the computer upgrade.
My DAW systems do exactly what I need them to do...so I don't see a reason to upgrade at this point. The second system I put in service is certainly nothing current, it's just a bit more current than
my other DAW.
I mainly got it as a backup (or now the older one will be the backup) so that I wouldn't ever have to build a new system from scratch under the gun if the other stopped working.
I only recently upgraded the actual DAW application...which I didn't have to, as my older version worked fine and I had it all wired....now of course I'm having to learn some of the differences, but it's OK, I just didn't want to fall too far behind with the main DAW application.
My original DAW still runs W2K....and on my "newer" DAW, I'm running XP...and have ZERO desire to move up to Win 7 or 8. I only did the second system as Win XP because a few additional plugs/apps that I purchased were not W2K compatible, but now all my apps are set, and I'm probably not buying any more software for a long time. I can still use my basic DAW on the old system as a backup...so no need to take that system out of commission. I also bought more of the same A/D/A hardware for the second system...so I can swap between them if I ever needed to.
My A/D/A hardware is all PCI-based on both DAWs, so if I started upgrading too much AFA new computers, I will end up having to rebuild my entire DAW system from scratch, just to keep pace (there's not much PCI out there anymore)....and I ain't about to drop a pile of cash just to change out 24 + 24 channels of A/D/A just so I can have Win 7/8 and something more newer that at the end of the day does pretty much exactly the same thing my current two systems already do.