I used BB along with a few other music programs in my "Off the shelf" Dell lappy for many years before I built my custom studio DAW.

Most modern lap tops are more than powerful enough to use with BB/RB and more. Even the low end cheap ones these days are extremely powerful and should be able to run any music related program with relative ease. It's generally not a laptop specs issue. The problem is in the built in sound card and the driver it uses. The MOBO manufacturers go on the cheap side on this area since 99.999% of the people using their laptop will use it to play mp3's, watch movies and play games. So the cheap sound card chips they use will do the job for that without any issues. Not so for the musicians who use it like we tend to do.

My advice.... spend the money to purchase a USB audio and midi "pro" interface which has the following features:

2 Audio inputs for low and high impedance mics and instruments. (More if you need more.)
Audio preamps on the audio inputs, (check out Focusrite)
48 volt phantom power for condenser mics
a sufficient number of outputs for powered speakers
headphone jack
uses native ASIO driver (not some crappy codec or wrapper)

A decent external USB interface will cost around $150 to $250 depending on the features and the manufacturer. I consider the interface to be the heart of the studio so don't be afraid to get a good one.

It's possible to use an adapter and plug the guitar and some dynamic mics into the soundcard on the lappy, either direct or thru a mixer board. However, you are generally limited to the MME driver which does not handle synths very well so you will end up with horrendous delays and latency in playback.

Avoid using a USB mic. They have other issues when it comes to recording and getting it to sync properly for playback in sync. There is a HUGE difference between a USB mic (piece of junk) and a dedicated professional level USB interface like I described in the paragraph above.

My Saffire by Focusrite interface is a fire wire connection not a USB. Today, I would get a USB for a number of reasons. However, my point is this, I bought that Saffire when I first re-started back into recording along with the purchase of the DELL off the shelf lappy. It worked perfectly for several years on that DELL with Cakewalk software and then also with BB and RB. When I built my new studio DAW, I moved that same Saffire interface to it's rear firewire port and it continues to function perfectly on the studio DAW.

I can not emphasize enough that a decent interface will make all the difference in the world to how well the studio you set up will function.

You can find my music at:
www.herbhartley.com
Add nothing that adds nothing to the music.
You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.

The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.