Laptops are easily lost or stolen and crammed with parts that are poorly cooled and hard to replace or upgrade. They should be treated as disposable--you can't

Laptops are easily lost or stolen and crammed with parts that are poorly cooled and hard to replace or upgrade. They should be treated as disposable--you can't really afford it if you'd struggle to replace it even once. If I had that problem and absolutely had to be mobile, I'd buy a netbook, work remotely on a real computer (VPS, EC2, whatever), and back up religiously. You definitely shouldn't squander a big fraction of your entire net worth on the Apple Tax, suggestions here to the contrary.