Earlier quoted context omitted.
What? A top spec 5 year old (2018) laptop should be plenty fast for most common desktop use. I have a 2016 Dell latitude laying around with Debian 11 on it. It is plenty fast for most things. Even running virtual machines in virtual box with gaming (mostly older Windows games I run in a WinXP VM)
I'm typing this on a top spec 10 year old laptop. I'm saying it's funny to see them feel that they need to defend that choice.
The big improvement with modern laptops isn't compute power, it's energy efficiency and thus battery life, and also weight. Modern laptops are a lot easier to carry than 10-year-old models since they weigh a fraction as much.