Thankfully, it is a laptop (presumably a Windows PC), not a phone or tablet. It may be full of junk, but you can remove it, reinstall a fresh copy of Windows,

Thankfully, it is a laptop (presumably a Windows PC), not a phone or tablet. It may be full of junk, but you can remove it, reinstall a fresh copy of Windows, and there is a good chance it can be fully functional on Linux too. I don't know how it is built but 10 years from now, there is a good chance it will continue to work as a useful computer, with OS security updates. It doesn't mean there isn't a problem with Lenovo installing crapware, and not everyone is tech savvy, but that senior just had to hand out the computer to someone who is, and he solved his problem. Now, with phones and tablets, you can't do that. You are stuck with the manufacturer's OS. Sometimes, when the manufacturer is nice enough and there is an active community, you can install third party ROMs, but often with significant loss of functionality: lower quality camera, some apps refusing to install, etc... I am a bit worried about Apple right now, they are making their laptops more and more phone-like. Apple has a rather good UX, and a consistent ecosystem that their users love, so, fine. But once Apple starts to do something, other manufacturers (PC, Android, ...) have a nasty tendency to copy, even the worst parts, and do it poorly on top of that.