Although Mellagar's suggestion is probably the one you should go with, I can tell you that they are up gradable, though you can't just walk down to the local PC shop and buy parts, I'm pretty sure that all Apple hardware pretty much has to be bought directly from them, so maybe visit
www.apple.com ?
As for software, It has long been said that Mac's have the best multimedia software, and I do agree with that in some places, what kind of stuff is your neighbour into? If he is into multimedia (making movies, music, and so on...) then it could be possible to do something, but if he wants to play games, then he would probably have more fun with the boat anchor
