Lenovo May Be Avoiding the 'Windows Tax' By Offering Cheaper Laptops With Pre-Installed Linux
'"The U.S. and Canadian websites for Lenovo offered U.S. $140 and CAD $211 off on the same ThinkPad X1 Carbon model when choosing any one of the Linux-based alternatives," reports It's FOSS News: This was brought to my attention thanks to a Reddit post... Others then chimed in, saying that Lenovo has been doing this since at least 2020 and that the big price difference shows how ridiculous Windows' pricing is... Not all models from their laptop lineup, like ThinkPad, Yoga, Legion, LOQ, etc., feature an option to get Linux pre-installed during the checkout process. Luckily, there is an easy way to filter through the numerous laptops. Just go to the laptops section (U.S.) on the Lenovo website and turn on the "Operating System" filter under the Filter by specs sidebar menu. The article end with an embedded YouTube video showing a VCR playing a videotape of a 1999 local TV news report... about the legendary "Windows Refund Day" protests.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/25/04/27/0127203 Cheers, Peter
On Mon, 28 Apr 2025 08:19:29 +1200, Peter Reutemann wrote:
'"The U.S. and Canadian websites for Lenovo offered U.S. $140 and CAD $211 off on the same ThinkPad X1 Carbon model when choosing any one of the Linux-based alternatives," reports It's FOSS News ...
Makes an interesting change. And quite a substantial one, too. For a long while, I thought the “Windows Tax” was offset by third parties paying the PC vendors to include adware/crippleware/crapware in their installations, to the point where I think some vendors were actually making money on the deal. I remember when Sony were still selling Vaio laptops, at one point, recognizing the annoyance to customers, they offered the option for a crapware-free Windows install, but you had to pay $50 extra. That just caused more annoyance ...
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro -
Peter Reutemann