First : laptops are big crap.
Second : he should have used a wallet like Electrum and engrave the passphrase somewhere, like under his table or something like that.
It doesn't really matter what device you are using to access your wallet. If you secure your wallet with a strong enough passphrase and save your wallet files in for example several USB sticks, and even your private keys in a paper wallet, you will never lose any of your coins. It's really simple but still some people are too lazy to take a few steps to secure their money well enough.
