cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/165736
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.
Cutting the Windows Tax
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.
US pricing on left, Canadian pricing on right.
Interestingly, while the difference in pricing is noticeable, your mileage may vary if you are looking for such laptops on the official website. 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.
Yes, it’s as simple as that. You can do the same for the various official online regional storefronts that Lenovo runs to see whether Linux-based operating systems are being offered on their laptops in your country.
Closing Thoughts
It is good to see that Lenovo is offering Linux in its laptops. In fact, there is another big-name laptop manufacturer, Dell, who also does something similar with its Ubuntu-certified laptops, but both have the same constraint of having limited options for buyers.
Also, as far as I know, Dell doesn’t reduce the pricing if you choose Linux instead of Windows. Correct me if I am wrong in the comments.
Nonetheless, 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.
Otherwise, we might have to start observing Windows Refund Day again.
💬 Your take on this? Would mainstream users benefit from having Linux pre-installed on their laptops?
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I mean it’s like maybe a dollar or two for the labor costs, so that’s understandable. I’d still prefer just a blank SSD anyway.
It’s likely done in an automated way by the same equipment that tests the hardware, so costs are probably more along the lines of a few fractions of a penny, and imo shipping any device without an os at all is a bit silly as they could very likely end up in the hands of someone without the capability or equipment to image them.
The cost is actually negative given that they get to pre-install whatever software they want into it.
For someone that wants to install their own OS, it coming with an OS installed by default is 100% irrelevant because you’d be plugging in a bootable drive on first boot up anyway.
No. If it does not work you can’t be sure if it is your fault or the device is broken. This will lead to support costs for the manufacturer
Why can’t you?
Because 99.999% of the time the hardware you’re buying is different from the hardware you have prior experience with. Even if the model numbers are the same there could be a change in hw or fw revision that breaks compatability with whatever drivers you previously had success with.