Man I got a computer engineering degree in 2015 with a $200 Chromebook chrooted into Debian. And I worked professionally for years on an 8gb MacBook Air. The Neo is definitely something younger me would be interested in.
That said, I quickly upgraded to a 4 year used Thinkpad and that was a huge difference.
Are there even any x86 Chromebooks left at that price point? They are only one that are still capable of chrooting into Linux. ARM Chromebooks remain locked up.
I don't know if this is particularly current or what, or if it's easy to setup to run another OS or whatever, but it meets your price and architecture criteria.
https://www.bestbuy.com/product/hp-14-chromebook-intel-celer...