Comparing "ability" of laptops

[hoping]

The down side is that this question is boring stupid 
The upside is it should therefore be easy to answer 
I just need to know if it is time for me (even for my humble needs) to upgrade my laptop by replacing it with a more powerful engine or buying a new one.
Comparing its specs with those advertised, what are the important parameters and what do they respectively do for the user?
Listening

[Allan]

Does you laptop do what you need it to do and work properly? The answer to that question is all that matters.

[Mark.]

+1
we fall into the trap of believing we need to get the latest and greatest, when what we have is adequately meeting our needs.
by all means, budget permitting, get new toys - and yes they will perform better than what you currently have - but will the outlay be offset by a measurable productivity increase?
and it's that subjective word productivity that only you can determine the worthiness of.

[hoping]

I love these answers!! That's how I also think!

OK, reason is I perceive my Internet to be a bit slow, so I upgraded my ISP to a new contracts called 4Mbps Uncapped, with 4Mbps ADSL to match. (Those number were respectively 2 and 2 before) Bought a new router too. My speed is same speed if not slower. (eg Chrome takes about 15 seconds to open) I sent a screenshot of a speed test to a clever young man who said my Internet is fast enough, it is probably my laptop, which is 6 years old. Hence the question. Does this help?

[Allan]

That clever young man isn't so clever. Your hardware does not effect internet speed. And the time it takes for a browser to OPEN has nothing to do with internet speed. Are you on dial-up? Because 4Mbps is VERY slow. My broadband connection is 200Mbps.

[Mark.]

@hoping,
I feel your ADSL pain.
I was on ADSL with a top speed of 3Mbps, all because of distance from the street, distance from the exchange, quality of the copper etc etc.

log into your modem config menu and hunt for these values; Signal to Noise Ratio, often abbreviated to SNR, and Line Attenuation.
the SNR should be around 7 to 12 and the attenuation around 20 to 40, anything higher and you have a 'noisy' line which your ISP should investigate.
also on your speed test, look at the latency figure, that's another indication of noisy lines.

things like corrosion in the street pit box, vermin in the pole junction etc.

but I have since moved cities and now get NBN at 40Mbps - happy days.

changing IPS's will not help (as you have discovered) if you are in a bad area.  you need to change to wireless broadband delivery, effectively bypassing the copper network, but you tend to get half the allowance at twice the monthly spend - but the speed will be awesome.  using your smart phone as a temporary hotspot should prove that point, one way or the other.

[Allan]

Oops - sorry - missed the ADSL reference.

[hoping]

I got smart and did a speed test by Ookla 
within 10 minutes the 3 tests showed download to be 1.74, 3.96,3.91 Mbps
uploads were 0.34, 0.44, 0.39 Mbps
The ping was 78, 72,44 ms

does that help?