Not if you compensate for how much extra you paid for it.
> As a browser and a ssh machine it's good enough.
So you're just offloading the needed upgrades to someone else, while still ALSO needing to maintain your own computer (though to a lesser degree).
Unless you need the extra battery capacity (how often do you need to work for several hours without being close to a plug?) then it's much simpler to just run everything locally. Plus you don't need an internet connection! Plus using an IDE or anything else graphical will actually be a bearable experience!
It's not how much you pay for your computer, but how much you spend per year, on average, that counts. If a computer does its job for twice as long as the other, it's reasonable to pay up to twice as much for it.
My dad ran Ubuntu for a decade on my 13 year old workstation. He couldn't do anything I could do on my laptop. A Pentium IV with HT was good enough for his LaTeX and his MCMC simulations.