A used Thinkpad. (or any other used non-consumer grade laptop)

Most companies either rent their laptops or somehow sell them after a couple of years. They are usually in good condition and often the reseller gives you 1-2 years of warranty. I've bought a used X250 for <300€ a couple of years ago and I could not be much happier. Of course, the specs could be a bit better, but for most of my tasks (HW + embedded Linux dev) it's sufficient. For everything else i can spin up some beefy server somewhere in a couple of minutes. And since the hardware is on the market for quite some time, driver issues are mostly resolved.

Bonus: used Docking stations and spare power supplies are cheap and the battery can be hot-swapped.

Bonus2: since it's already slightly beaten down, making another scratch doesn't hurt as much as if it would've been a shiny new macbook.

edit: I think the official term is "refurbished". I can't see myself ever buying a new device again.

System76 is by far the best that I have found. No litany of kludges to make your Windows laptop mostly functional (e.g. no need to have kernel parameters to work around buggy hardware) No need to look compatibility tables and install guides.

It ships with Linux preinstalled and with great support. So if you want Linux that Just Works, this is my recommendation. (Also if you want to DIY it with e.g. Arch, since the hardware supports Linux already.)

I’ve had good experiences with business-grade Dell laptops like the Latitude line. Framework and Thinkpads are generally solid, too.

As for distro, Fedora is a great beginner distro.

It's mostly up to you and your requirements. Most laptops should be fine, that doesn't really matter that much whenever do you use windows or Linux. I think thinkpads are way too over hyped. I would just grab something with good build quality, and specs you need. If you want something really fancy like fingerprint, smartcard reader make sure it's compatible with Linux, that's all.

I wouldn't recommend fedora as it uses RPM and SElinux which can be tricky, especially for beginners.

I am mid-advanced Linux user, I would went with Linux Mint, no matter is it for me or for somebody totally new.

that depends entirely on what you do with it. bare 24.04 sits at about 0% CPU / 1 GiB RAM usage.

a browser+IDE combo will perfectly fine even on a budget laptop with 4 cores / 8 GB RAM / generic SSD.

You may look into Framework laptops.

Checkout framework laptop

framework 13 amd cpu. It's great!