And it's even more painful for me to do the remote tech support for my (80+ years old) parents so paying the difference is a kind of preservation of my mental health...

The funny thing is that it would do the same for double the price.

You need to spend a ridiculous amount of time on research because the producer itself is selling very different product (very different quality) from a year to another.

I wish a "brand" would be consistant but it's not 99% of the time.

That's an important point - the been through 5 of them. The cost or running a $600 mac is probably similar to running $300 pc laptops that pack up.