[PlanetCCRMA] Laptop recording

[Henk Jansen]

I'm planning to buy a laptop (2nhand perhaps) mostly for audio
purposes only (recording) and running the CCRMA softwares suite on it. 
A music expert from a local renown music shop told me that the standard
soundcards on laptop computers are of poor quality for recording purposes. 
Therefore, USB or FireWire connected Audio/MIDI devices seems to be the
way to go. That shop only sells M$Windows related FireWire stuff (he says that
USB 1 "was too slow" causing unacceptable latency and "USB 2 hardware support 
is hard to get"). Therefore, I've been looking for affordable,
cost/effective digital recording devices, such as the Behringer BCA2000
(http://www.americanmusical.com/item--i-BEH-BCA2000--brand-29.html) 
which connects to an USB2 interface. I have the following questions:

1) Is such a device a good option, and is it supported by the CCRMA
software? Or are there better alternatives?
2) What should I look for in particular when buying a 2ndhand laptop mainly 
for audio purposes? (Intel/Centrino, AMD, Athlon, ...?)

Any suggestions are welcome of course.

Thanks for your advice,

--Henk