Last year's machine had a significantly slower graphics chip. The HD 520 isn't really good for much more than displaying a spreadsheet. Especially not at the high resolutions the screen is capable of. The Iris 540 graphics chip...I've seen benchmarks that suggest it's about 60% faster.
So you could run the older model on Linux, if you never wanted to run anything more complicated than a web browser.
Re: Lenovo.....
Last year's machine had a significantly slower graphics chip. The HD 520 isn't really good for much more than displaying a spreadsheet. Especially not at the high resolutions the screen is capable of. The Iris 540 graphics chip...I've seen benchmarks that suggest it's about 60% faster.
So you could run the older model on Linux, if you never wanted to run anything more complicated than a web browser.