The review is pretty realistic.

I use UX305 with Arch as my "procrastinate, err code, in coffeeshop" machine and it is a great notebook for the money. The keyboard with no backlight is main issue (for me). And the sound sucks.

I wonder if the bios is locked to prevent installing Linux.

Ubuntu 15.04 ins some daily build version installed without any bios changes (everything, I have tried worked like a charm). Arch needed to disable secure boot (that should work in any Win8 labeled machine). Some things (GPU sleep) needed a bit of thinkering.

Seems unlikely. Can't see how that would be possible without creating a support nightmare even just updating Windows with special restrictions.