I just bought a Lenovo x220 which is about 2 years old, and it runs both Win7 and Linux Mint perfectly. Very fast, and I can even do SOME gaming with it. Best 200 USD purchase ever. There's no clear reason to upgrade laptops every year, until then I was using a 5 years old HP PC, which was working fine, too.

Shutting down your PC line in Europe is stupid, though. Well, that's better for the other competitors, which will fill the gap.