Should i get a new laptop or not?

[Travis]

If all you're really doing is homework, facebook, web browsing... that laptop is totally fine. The only thing you might miss out on with that laptop would be gaming. If you're not into gaming on a PC anyhow, then you're really not going to get much out of an upgrade now. Ride that one until until it dies, and replace it when it quits on you.

That said, for full disclosure, I'm totally bitter against Dell as a brand. I've had two Dells, they both died young. My wife and stepdaughter both had Dells, they both died young. When I say died, I mean motherboard failures that would cost as much or more than the cost of buying a new replacement. I've since replaced everything with Acer's and Asus over the last 3-4 years, and havent had a single problem with any of them!

If your laptop now is running slow on you, invest some time cleaning out some old trash... old programs you no longer use, browser add-ons, that sort of thing. Check what programs are loading automatically at startup. Often times it'll bog down with updater apps, like Java or iTunes, that hog up resources until you kill them off.