The CD player on my PC crapped out months ago and, for me, an external CD drive has been fine. I use it when I need it and put it away for the other 99% of the time. Granted, I almost never need to use my CD drive and Im on a desktop while your on a laptop so you may have a much higher usage and/or not want to hump around an additional component.
If you can get a new, better, laptop for $400.00 then Id go for that. Whats the monetary difference between that and just a drive? A few hundred dollars? And you will get a performance increase and a several years worth of use.