- gaming laptops aren't worth it in the end (particularly in a world where the steamdeck and its competitors exist for playing mid-range titles and lower portably)
- if you like macs, any apple silicon laptop is great although i'd personally like something smaller than what's currently offered to fully ditch the iPad
- if you don't need the latest and greatest, and especially if it's not your main machine, rescue something (preferably a thinkpad) from a thrift store and put some flavour of linux on it.
