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Ask Slashdot: Buying a Laptop That Doesn't Have Windows 8
First time accepted submitter Sagan's Pie writes "I'm starting to look for a laptop for college, and the only thing I seem to find are laptops or tablets that have Windows 8. I have used Windows 7 for a long time now, and would not have a problem giving it up, but not for Windows 8. After visiting many major online retail sites, I've found that finding either a Windows 7 laptop, or even a laptop without an operating system is nearly impossible. So where should I go if looking for laptops sans os, or at the very least sans Windows 8?"
Order it an you can choose 7 instead of 8
Get a Thinkpad. I just got a W530 with a 1920x1080 screen, one of the few you can find outside Apple. It has great Linux support, even down to the silly fingerprint reader. I can easily get 7 hours or so on the battery with the recommended tweaks. There's a whole wiki just for Thinkpad stuff.
It ships with Windows 7, but you never have to boot into Windows. You can blow away the whole drive, "recovery" and "boot" partitions, and never look back. It has a conventional BIOS in addition to UEFI (disabled by default; leave it that way), so you shouldn't have any issues there.
It's a tank, it's not terribly sexy like an ultrabook, but it's great if you want a desktop-fast Linux-friendly workstation laptop.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Except it is not always that simple. Supposedly there are already some laptops out there that lack drivers for Windows 7. The number of incompatible laptops will increase as time goes on.
There is also the problem of support. Vendors may refuse to support your hardware if it does not have the factory provided OS or software on it.
And on top of that, you would be paying for an additional windows license.