[Apfel]

I've said this in another comment, but here goes again:

Actually, the laptops I tried out were almost all Dell + Lenovo (I wanted a thinkpad or XPS). I think, as another commenter said, they were probably Linux + FreeDOS systems originally. What the store owners would do is use Norton Ghost to put whatever (illegal) OS I wanted on there.

I think maybe there are large regional differences in product availability or regulation. I know it was a lot harder to buy iPhones in certain tier 1 Chinese cities than others when I was there, for example.