Here’s a hypothesis: Dan needed to transport the laptop before opening it. It could have been a gift and the goal was for it to fit, wrapped, in a small suitcase. Or for some reason he needed a shrink-wrapped unopened laptop somewhere (as evidence that it hadn’t been tampered with) and the quality of the laptop made no difference whatsoever.

Even if this is wrong, I bet telling the salesperson that it was a gift and he wanted the smallest package would have avoided funny looks.