And from the glowing reviews it’s clear that

  1. W11 doesn’t actually need a new PC to run and the limitations are completely artificial

  2. For many people, a ten years old PC is fast enough (or even faster than a brand new Intel N100 PC that is officially W11 compatible). They won’t even notice that’s something from 2015, as long it has a shiny new case, enough RAM and SSD

  3. Amazon doesn’t care that the PC comes with pirated software, or that someone is scamming their customers, as long they get their 15% cut from marketplace sales (the cost of a genuine license of W11 pro and office exceeds the price of those ewaste specials)

  • AnyOldName3@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    8 hours ago

    It can’t be legitimate because licences for the bundled software cost more than the machines are being sold for. Also, the hardware included isn’t officially Windows 11 compatible, so selling it with Windows 11 installed is misleading the customer into thinking they’re buying something much more recent than they really are. For a decent number of people buying these, they’re likely to own something just as new already, and could get a free upgrade to Windows 11 by doing the same configuration tweaks as the sellers did.

    • Farid@startrek.websiteEnglish
      22·
      8 hours ago

      Do you mean you wouldn’t consider it a scam if it has W10 preinstalled instead? How much is MS Office anyway? I know there are $5 W11 keys all over the place.

      • AnyOldName3@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        7 hours ago

        The $5 Windows keys have never been legitimate - either they’re just people selling keys they’ve generated with a keygen or bought with a stolen credit card, or it’s students reselling free keys they’ve got from Dreamspark or a sysadmin selling keys from their employer’s enterprise licence, which, in Microsoft’s eyes, are all piracy. An OEM copy of Windows 11 Pro is about €150 and can’t be transferred to a different motherboard, and a retail copy which can be transferred is about €300. A one-time purchase copy of Office is about €120 (it’s also available as a subscription). These machines either have at least €270 of software on them, or €0 worth of pirated software on them.

        • Farid@startrek.websiteEnglish
          1·
          5 hours ago

          What does it matter that Microsoft considers it piracy? If they got the keys for cheap somewhere, it’s a real licensed version anyway and will work fine.
          I can order retro emulation handhelds from China and it will arrive with 1000s of ROMs, which is literal piracy, but that doesn’t make it a scam.