Mac Mini M4 or Macbook Air M4 is not expensive. Just bought the latter (extensive rebates at the moment) to replace my Intel-based 2019 MPB. Wow! It's pretty much the perfect laptop, at that price.

My primary complaint so far: The green color LED on the magsafe connector is not the same green as the LED on the caps lock key. This wouldn't have passed the Steve Jobs approval.

Honestly I'm not much of a laptop stan. They're IMO overpriced or crap, or the case of HP, overpriced and crap.

Wintel laptops certainly are.

I bet you would love the Mac Mini M4 though. (I've spent some time perusing your site during the numerous times it's been posted here.)

Use MacOS Sequoia (15.x) for at least the next year though.