I'm not a tech expert but, for what it's worth, probably the best purchase I've ever made was a 2013 Macbook Air with every possible upgrade (except storage space, 256 gb was fine for me on a laptop). It's still going strong now, after five years of heavy use. It's light in my bag, feels nice to use, the battery probably wants replacing but it still lasts a good while, and, thanks to the RAM and SSD and... so forth, it doesn't keep me waiting to e.g. open my 8th word document while I'm running no end of chrome tabs etc, which for me is crucial.
Based on that only, I recommend making a possibly OTT investment so that you can (a) get something you really like and (b) won't have to think about it again for a few years, even if your usage changes a bit.