I got this badboy used,

http://www.toshiba.co.uk/discontinue...tege-r700-155/

for £250, it came with a ssd which makes everything faster.

The only real issue is that it heats up very easily due to having one of the older generations i5 and should not be used for any kind of gaming, aka minecraft.

But I have sat in a lecture room, compiling something on the Sailfish SDK and the heat spiked and the fans went crazy, but it was never enough for any of my professors to mention it.

This is getting unnecessarily political. A pre-installed OS is just another feature I may not want, like Bluetooth or a built-in camera. Just like the other two, I will just not use it. If a laptop with Bluetooth is cheaper than an otherwise similar model with it, then I go for the cheaper one. The same with a pre-installed OS.

Compared to unwanted hardware components, a pre-installed OS or other SW has the extra advantage that it is easy to remove and doing so generally does not affect the warranty.

You may want to fight your windmills. I live in the real world.

An unwanted hardware component usually does not affect what I can do with the NEXT device. An OS forced on me by a de-facto monopolist can.
In fact it already does! When you call the support for a hardware problem the first thing they'll usually ask you to do is to restore or start the factory OS. If you refuse to ever start Windows due to whatever reasons you have a problem right here.

I almost was in this situation:
In 2010 I bought a Dell laptop which usually comes bundled with Windows. But I fought very hard to get it without it. A year later my graphics card died and the first thing the Dell support wanted me to do was to reinstall my original copy of Windows that came with the device.
It took some convincing, but after a while they realized that their DB entry was in fact correct and that I never received any Windows copy. Only then they were willing to deal with the problem regardless of the OS.

Of course you are free to go the easy way and buy all your computers with useless pre-installed Windows copies if that's too political for you.
But that is exactly the reason why I have to fight windmills.

I accept all your aguments except this one:

It is just as difficult to buy a laptop or tablet without a camera as it is without <choose your evil OS>. In fact, more so.

I was in a similar situation with my new car. It came with an iPod socket. Completely useless for me. More than useless, since it took some space in the whatever the compartment is called (see pic) that could otherwise be used more efficiently for other things.



If I had a choice, I would have bought one without it. But I did not

What makes no sense is the current status of the laptop market.

There's some really good laptops out there that's about $500 mark.
And they come with 1080p screens, Celeron/Core i3, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD.

If you were to bump up to a Core i5, which the price difference would be <$50... you are in fact charged an extra $200. And say you want to jump to a touchscreen, which is <$5, you are charged at least $100. Then you want a modern 8GB RAM, costs <$20, you are charged another $150. What about the storage to 256GB SSD, costs <$100, you are charged $200. And if you were to go beyond 1080p, the panel's cost is $50, you are charged $400.

If you add these up, you get a price increase from the $500+ mark to the $2,000 mark.

I currently have one of the first Ultrabooks by Toshiba, its 4 years old, and got it for $1,200.
It has 4GB/128GB which is the equivalent of today's 8GB/256GB. The sharpest screen at the time was 1080p, but I instead got the 768p instead due to price and battery life trade-offs. The better screen required a ~$300 mark up, which is a "livable ripoff".

I mean imagine the Lenovo Yoga Pro 3 (8GB, 256GB). Now imagine it had a Core i5 instead. It would traditionally cost AU $1,550. But no, its got the slower (and cheaper) Core M and is on sale for AU $2,100. The prices have gone up by $500 !

I also compared this to the MacBook Pro Retina 13"... and it has the proper processor, but lacks a touchscreen and tablet mode, and its comparatively costs AU$2,100 (which is the price point its always been at).

The Dell XPS 13...?
Similar specs. Can't convert into a tablet. Costs $2,300.

The problem with comparing unwanted hardware with unwanted software is that you can't compare them.
If you want your laptop without a camera or your car without an ipod socket you need something else instead, at least some sort of dummy that replaces the module. With laptop cameras that was even the case some time ago, but they seem to have ditched that approach.

This means that the camera/socket module needs to be a module in the first place and that there's another module ready to replace it with. This costs money. If you're willing to pay for that I'm sure you'll get your laptop without a camera and your car without a socket. The problem is, that from your perspective as a single end-user this proice would be ridiculous.

The situation with pre-installed operating systems is completely different. At least the business class manufacturers offer different Windows versions anyway. Chosing one or the other boils down to installing another HDD with a pre-installed image. There's no technical reason for them to not have an option with an empty HDD.
I would be willing to pay the extra money it costs to swap that HDD and probably even the loss in advertisement income due to the missing bloatware on my HDD.
The problem is that apparently there are contracts between MS and the laptop manufacturers/vendors that say no laptop may be sold without an OS (not necessarily from MS). In return the MS licenses are basically for free. At least that's what a small vendor who also sells laptops with Linux told me some years ago. Unfortunately he couldn't go into detail due to an NDA.

We've veered off topic to tilt at windmills.

The HP Stream 7 I ordered from Microsoft UK arrived this morning. It's chunky, the screen is distinctly average but useable and Windows 8 is awful but it is going to be useful for me for testing and running some Windows only software I very occasionally have to run. It's a pity it doesn't have an HDMI out as it might have even made a semi-decent occasional desktop.

At £49 including Office 365 for a year it was actually £10 cheaper than just paying for the Office subscription, which I've put on my Mac.

If you're not sure about tablets then watch out for these bargains.

+1 to that too.
t60 convertible tablet laptop is just that ...fab.

And yeah the price tag issues which have been mentioned...
yeah well...
a desktop is cheaper than a laptop which is cheaper than a tablet which is in turn cheaper than a convertible.
Also considering guts...oomph...computing power...what have you....essentially all the goodies..it's always been about what could be crammed inside the given space and still be at the edge of comfort...regardless of what the form factor was.
Some did / do it better...some did / do it worse.
For those thinking that a convert doesn't have the ability to accomplish serious work. I beg to differ. Either you haven't used what I use currently and /or had a bad experience with a tablet or convert. in the past....I had a few of my own...back in the early-early 2000's....the tablet pc's and convertibles just weren't anywhere near.
The only drawback today compared to then is that the screen real estate and screen res. was killer on some (acer travelmate c100, c300, portege m200, tecra m4, m7..absolutely a joy to graphically work on....both brands which I still use for sketching, painting and base initial work on before transferring to my portege m780 or x230...) ..they just don't make good screen sizes any more..let alone screen resolutions...I mean it is hard to beat the joy of a nice res like 1400x1050 SXGA or higher even ....on a penabled laptop or tablet..but yeah...they don't make them like that anymore sadly.
That's why I like the older convertible tablet/ laptops for graphic work (at least initial... if not almost all the way to finished state..before transferring to a more mod system for completion...)
The only thing I don't do on my m780 or x230 is serious gear-wrenching work that anything less than a desktop or desktop replacement killer normally couldn't do. Then I simply transfer said work to the more capable system for finishing. But those kinds of programs are few and far between (so far..as some serious progs get heavier and more consumptive in the future ..as the nature of things is wont to do..I'll slowly relegate less and less to my current graphic beasts ..and hunt down the next "current" model in the future.)

For me...work-wise I've had my bad experiences in the early years...but I quickly found what makes and models I liked and needed to get the job done ...
So yeah...
In the end it depends on the usage...the need.
A desktop is great ...but uncomfortable and not portable.
A laptop is great ..but doesn't have the guts of the desktop nor the uber comfort and tactile interface of a tablet sittin' on the couch.
A tablet is great...but doesn't have the desktop guts and is pitiful to type on unless you have an external keyboard...
Depending on the make, model and year ...a convertible can fit at least the comfort of the tablet and the convenience of the laptop ...but still...the computing power winner goes to the stationary giant box under the desk ...or...the desktop replacement killer laptop.
For the time being....

It's been mentioned before....and it is sound advice...
research, research, research...
find out what specs you really need 1st.
2nd...don't buy the latest..buy an older model..try out what you "think" you want . If it appeals to you ...and subsequent newer models by the same producer offer nothing but a better experience....then there is your answer for the potential for a future investment.

Proof is in the pudding...
money where the mouth is...
and alllll those horrid platitudes...
What an old portege m200 can do is this...
All these were done using the m200 ...very minute later editing was done on the m780 and finally my desktop replacement killer....but only because I didn't wish to wait for the editing process to finish on ...essentially... a very old m200...however grand she is...I need her for more work while the editing is taking place
To understand...initially I do a real graphite sketch and rough pen and inks to almost finished pen and inks...working on areas up to 6 ft x 6 ft. and larger..
All on the original surface...(since a great deal of initial emotion is lost doing iterations)..then scan it...comparably the m200 can handle the size pound for pound, inch for inch, pixel for pixel.
on the m200 I clean up the muddiness.....see what I can do to improve the physik dimensions ...play with some colours ....see what works essentially. Best copies win. I then reduce said copies for printing everything from tshirts, patches, mugs, and illustrated limited edition runs of prints.
Then I hit the shop make a single rendition in a carving...usually antler...sometimes wood.
Then I go back to the physic original and finish it properly referring to my digital work and finish it exactingly in oils.
(This is what I do for kicks...
My serious work is purely in carving, harps and making weird odd thingamajigs ... )

It keeps the integrity of the initial sketch while being able to work in multiple mediums and yet play with the initial sketch without fear of ruining it ...see what variables work and what ones don't ...and be able to finish it to my exacting satisfaction...

And what used to be the bane of all artists...
a truly monumentally epic waste of materials to produce a finished work ...
sweating and worrying that a single miss-stroke could destroy incredible amounts of hours of work...forever..
isn't even a thought I dwell on anymore.
All I can say is thank goodness for my convertibles.

You simply disable that nasty camera and voila. On the other hand, absence of camera may make it harder to resell.