I would use Linux as my main operating system if...
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Fair enough - that's more than I thought it was.
I don't have Pro though, just standard Windows 8, and a quick Google suggests that costs under £100, or under a sixth of the cost of the laptop. I can still live with that for the convenience of Windows.
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Well, you can't run two instances of Steam on the same account at the same time, and I'd prefer to have native games when possible.
You've been able to do that for like 3 months now.
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I haven't been running Linux as my main OS for at least 3 months now, then.
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the reason Android is kicking seven shades of shit out of Windows Phone, despite being (IMO) technically inferior is everything to do with the fact Android is effectively free.
Umm, no. The real reason is that Android is where the existing apps and users are. Why are the users there? Because the apps are there (and it's not a freaking iPhone). Why are the apps there? Because the devs think the users are there. It's self-reinforcing. (Plus you can get pretty good Android phones from no-name Chinese manufacturers for not very much; for the price-sensitive end of the market, that matters a lot.)
Breaking into a market reckoned to be large enough to support two really profitable ecosystems (currently Apple and Android/Samsung) is difficult, even with a very good product. What's more, it's not like the competition are going to sit still and let you steal userbase easily via marketing and so on. It's looking like by the time MS got a good mobile OS, they were already facing a hugely difficult task against heavily entrenched incumbents.
The odd thing is, I see a fair number of Windows Phone systems in the UK. It appears to be the one country where it was a reasonable hit. No idea why we're different to elsewhere.
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Why are the apps there?
There's a much lower cost of entry to making Android apps. In order to make an iOS app, you need to own a mac and pay Apple $99 a year for the dev tools. To make an Android app, you need an IDE that supports Java and you need to download the free Android SDK. If you want to publish the app, that's a one-time payment (significantly less than $99, can't remember the number at the moment).
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One-time $25 registration fee.
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Well, there's games and productivity apps, of course. I also have some expensive (well, used to be expensive) audio software that's only supported under PC or Mac.
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There's a much lower cost of entry to making Android apps.
None of that matters very much by comparison with the location of customers. If you want to sell stuff, you got to be selling it where the customers are, or you've got to persuade the customers to come to you (hard to do unless you're offering something much cheaper, give much better service, or have a good USP of some sort). Absolutely basic business and common sense too.
