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"My 755CD (remember those?) was the fastest IBM had to offer 7 months ago. Now I think it's been supplanted 3 times. That doesn't even count jumping between brands as one or the other has more chache' (pardon the pun)." First, the 755CD was released more than 7 months ago, so you are starting this evaluation at the end of a product cycle. Second, it has been supplanted 2 times (760CD and 760ED) not 3 times. Generally the cycle for actually obtaining new cutting ednge machines it you stick to one brand is more like 2 a year (this is based on experience, at least with thinkpads :-) of course if you jump brands, then you can increase this arbitrarily, but that's hard to believe that this would result in increments big enough to be worthwhile. The TP->Tecra jump is an oddity really, resulting from other factors (namely the fact that for the first time in a while, Tecra is clearly a jump ahead of IBM in screen technology). "At that point, you are implicity depreciating it to the price at which the guy with less requirements could buy a used machine that meets his needs. You save the overhead of actually buying and selling, but it's sort of the same." That's not right at all. These machines are fully configured for exactly our use, and we know they work fine, and have been carefully treated and maintained. Furthermore, they are still under lease, the depreciation has nothing to do with who is using it, I don't know of any concept of implicit depreciation that makes sense here (certainly I don't think you can get the IRS to agree to such a concept!) You would have a hard time getting a leasing company to lease used equipment from a miscellaneous seller! The point is that buying new machines may make sense especially in the context of requiring new machines, but it depends on the individual circumstances. I have always found it easily worthwhile for my work to be close to cutting edge technology, but I think that's very unusual, and most people would do better to avoid he "I-must-have-the-latest-and-greatest" syndrome, since if you don't really need it, this can cost you mucho $$$