Re: The PC...
Very well said!
I am in the market for a new machine & have been shopping the various players in the desktop market. I can get very nice deals on awesome hardware (how about a quad core, 6th gen, 4GHz, i7 with 32Gigs of DDR4 RAM & a 250Gb M.2 SSD for $1,200USD from System76? Is that good enough?) for less than the cost of a similarly equipped laptop. "Thin & Light" critters need not apply, they can't even come CLOSE on specs much less performance, & certainly not at that price point.
So I can shop around to find the best deal on the hardware I want in the configuration I need, & work with the seller to tweak it even farther, all for a price undreamed of ~5 years ago. And best of all, if I don't want Windows on it I don't HAVE to get it. Most of the major vendors try to insist, but all it takes is the phrase "Do you want to make this sale or do you want to leave MS on it?" to get them to back off. You obviously can't do this via a website, but if you get the basics of the system you want there first & then call their sales line, that's where the haggling & tweaking comes into play.
It *really* pounds the lesson home if you configure the hardware with $Vendor1, get it RIGHT up to the point of giving them your credit card, then asking about either it being a bare bones (no OS) or Linux box. If they refuse then you shrug, say "Guess I'll take my money somewhere else then..." & wait a few seconds before hanging up. They NEED that sale, they're hurting for the money, so it's a buyer's market. If they refuse to play, you can take your ball & go elsewhere.
Like System76, where the aforementioned desktop can be had by configuring your own "Rattle Pro" machine to the top of the line bits they offer, & *still* not come anywhere near what others would charge for a pitifully equipped "Thin & Light" supposedly "Gaming" laptop.
I'm not trying to flog S76, I've got no ties to them at all, but I was _SO_ impressed by the value you can get from a dealer if you tell them you want a desktop rather than a laptop. They fall all over themselves to make that sale, thus ensuring you can get some massively sweet hardware for very little (comparitive to laptops) cost.
The fact that you can then "force" them to either give it to you without Windows on it or as a Linux (usually Ubuntu) box instead is just icing on the cake.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to go browse the vendors again. I like configuring one of those supposedly "dead" PC desktops & cackling gleefully at the prices...