Which should I buy?! What would you do?

Hi, very vague header sorry but finally having to say goodbye to my ancient imac and struggling to know which way to jump.
Covid has destroyed my livelihood as a freelance musician so I can’t be profligate! I also dislike the throwaway culture of just discarding old tech that still works perfectly well for more basic tasks so will be rehoming the imac.
I used to use Cubase on a pc happily, then got given this second hand work imac when my pc died and so bought brand new software etc for it.
Now not sure what to do.
If I switch to windows do I get any sort of discount on new Cubase software or am I back starting from scratch again?
Can you run Cubase pro decently on a windows laptop or is that going to cause issues?

“profligate”… It’s not even 9am my time and I already learned a new word today! Thanks!

Not sure what discount you’re thinking of but there’s nothing special about Win v MacOS as far as that goes. Did you mean if you get a discount on your old Cubase version upgrading to a new one? Your best bet is to just click your way to the online store and choose the version you’re interested in and then see if there’s a discount.

I haven’t used a Win laptop for work for some time so I couldn’t tell you anything about that really other than that it was fine for me. Nothing special about the operating system and more about the computer itself I think.

Which version of Cubase do you have? For a lot of years now the licence on your usb dongle will allow you to install on pc or Mac

Oh I am well behind, am on 9.5. I didn’t know that about the interchangeable license, thankyou, will check, that would be very helpful financially if I could just reinstall!

Yes sorry I wasn’t very clear, I just remembered vaguely from YEARS ago when I used to regularly update my cubase version (on windows) you didn’t have to pay the full amount as if you were a completely new user. I’m perfectly happy with 9.5 and don’t need anything more fancy, but its so long that I actually bought a new computer I feel really out of the loop & so thought people here might have ideas. If I can run it happily on a Macbook or laptop then I’d be able to use it with some of the outside performance work I may be able to pick up when lockdown is over. My prior experience of laptop type gear is that it tended to trip up with heavy audio/video stuff a bit.

Your 9.5 license is valid for Cubase.
It is not machine platform specific.
You can download both Windows and Mac versions , although the Win dongle won’t work on the Mac , and vice-Versa.
Upgrade paths are also not machine specific.
Buy the Cubase 11 upgrade , and run it on your latest machine - you will love it.