(Price is in € EUR)
For context, six months ago I bought a renewed Thinkpad X395 for exactly this price and I got: An actually decent CPU and not something as powerful as a Wii, 16 GB of RAM, 256 GB of actual M.2 SSD, a really nice 1080p Touchscreen, really nice build quality with metal and a nice backlit keyboard. Heck, even when I bought a cheap laptop in May 2020 it was much better than this and it even was brand new for the same price.
I know this CPU very well, for this price you are getting something that has trouble playing a Youtube video in 1080p at 60 FPS and can’t even run the latest version of Minecraft at above 10 FPS. Now imagine this combined with Windows 11 and only 4 GB of RAM…
No, this is not because of the current hardware crysis, this is pure greed. But hey, 1 year of Microslop 365 is included!
I guess as long as the laptop isn’t connecting to anything else and you are transferring data via USB, there is no issue. The fact that it is using special software makes me think it is directly connected to your database, making that a loose cannon if there is any kind of compromise.
W10 IOT dropped support last year, so it will not receive security patches UNLESS you are using W10 IOT Enterprise LTSC. I doubt it because the license is twice the cost of the laptop. It’s available from CDW, but I think there are stipulations.
Your boss would have been better off buying a used enterprise laptop from Amazon.
I am explicitly using LTSC.
You don’t need a license if you know about massgrave.dev. I’m only using this because our warehouse software requires Windows and the latter is already bought and paid for. Otherwise, Microsoft can bite me.
Personally, I would gladly activate friends and family using mass grave.
Professionally, while I have never seen an audit in decades, I would not bypass Microsoft activation in a professional setting. It’s the company’s hardware, and if they insist on using it they will need to pony up for a licence. I’m not liable for the device if I advise it is not able to be updated and they insist on using it. I will be liable if I use the activation script.