this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2025
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Lenovo Cuts the Windows Tax and offers Cheaper Laptops with Linux Pre-installed (news.itsfoss.com)
submitted 22 hours ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
24 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

At least in the U.S. and Canada, that is.

This was brought to my attention thanks to a Reddit post where a user (presumably a resident of Canada), had posted how Lenovo was shipping laptops with Fedora and Ubuntu at a cheaper price compared to their Windows-equipped counterparts.

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.

When I dug in further, I found out that the US 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.

I think these manufacturers could do a better job in marketing these Linux-based alternative operating systems to general consumers, showing them how they can save big when opting for these instead of the pricey and bloated Windows.

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[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 39 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

The trick with selling Linux is not telling the user it's not Windows. I used to refurb old laptops for old ladies. Throw a light version of Linux on there, show 'em the internet, maybe setup email, done. And I never got pestered to come back and fix shit.

[–] Sixtyforce@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 hours ago

My parents bought laptops together around 2013 that they still use today, just with new batteries and SSD upgrades.

Windows 10 was already pushing it, I had to do some funky things to stop Windows from overwriting old drivers with newer versions that broke stuff like the trackpads. Now they have Fedora KDE spin. The GUI is similar enough when all you do is use Thunderbird, Firefox, and the File Explorer.

Changing OS was still scary to them, so I just brought over a live USB for them to test drive.

[–] YerbaYerba@lemm.ee 17 points 14 hours ago

My grandmother used Ubuntu for years. I setup autologin and put a Firefox shortcut on the Desktop. The next time a problem cropped up was when the LTS support ended