There are a few drawbacks to using a laptop for audio:
1. slower hard drive - laptops typically ship with a 4200rpm drive, slower than the "normal" 5400 rpm and way down from the 7200 and 10k rpm drives. The speed can be a factor as track count builds and the drive is required to simultaneously read/write data.
2. slower graphics processor - some laptops will use motherboard graphics like Intel GMA or similar which is limited in resolution and uses system RAM rather than dedicated V-RAM.
3. overall RAM limitations. The general rule of RAM with audio and video apps is "more is better and too much is not enough". 512M is a typical minimum amount of RAM you'd want on any machine w/ 1G being better, 1.5G better than that and so on.
You should optimize your system (clean off any junk that you do not need on the drive to free up recording space, defrag the drive, use an older version of an audio application that may be less of a RAM hog than a newer version, keep your net browsing clean and efficient by using an adequate virus app...I like Avast for Windows and I also use Firefox and not the inherently-troubled Internet Exploder..., max out the RAM).
Also, Audacity is a free audio app from the makers of SoundForge. I've used it on Mac and Windows with success. You can use plug-ins with it, it's not a resource hog and it's free! All you'd have to get would be a simple usb-based audio I/O device.