Binos, a simple outline of what you want to use the laptop for generally and the heaviest anticipated job for it in the future - such as, say, digital video editing would be a great starting point to give you numbers for processor and RAM that will make sense to a PC user.
It can be frustrating because Mac folks by and large don't ever bother mentioning these things. They assume you've bought the form factor, HD size, memory and CPU that suits you and your purposes. If you think about it the Mac users evengelicism is about the operating system and using the thing and productivity. This is an alien concept for the majority of PC folks.
However, all the hardware is standard PC from mainline manufacturers and the systems are built at PC factories in the Far East which means you expand and upgrade in exactly the same way as everyone else and at PC prices.
Regards
rob