By their definition, laptops are portable pieces of equipment. Therefore they are subject to a lot more physical wear and tear than the average desktop PC, being moved around in bags, cars, trains and airports; often used in temperatures and conditions far from 'office-like'. Because of this, they'll often need repairing more frequently; but remember, laptops aimed at the home market are often far less durable and repairable than business laptops.
Laptops are very easy to stea: they are small and have value.
As a laptop is not always connected to a network, it will often carry a lot more data on it - data that is important to your business, and such data could be seen as very useful to your competitors!
In addition to the physical security aspect, there is that of the WiFi connection that is used in the hotel, airport or coffee shop. Many Windows laptops come with 'File sharing' enabled by default, thus allowing data to be shared over a WiFi link. Has the File Sharing option been disabled ?
Whilst technical details of your users latest project may not be of interest to a casual thief, a quick look at the users Facebook / Paypal / ebay account details, most certainly would be.
Laptop users need to be aware with all the security risks that this entails.
Whilst computers (whether desktop or laptop) are sold alongside bread and milk in supermarkets, these are aimed at the home market. They may look the same as business computers and appear to run the same programs, but they soon show their true colours when attached to a business network.
Problems such as random disconnections from shared drives, will soon appear and, as they are built down to a price, their reliability soon becomes questionable.
Purchase business computers for business and home computers for home