I am not especially tech-literate and very clumsy. I want to buy a thinkpad that I can set up as a privacy machine. I mostly use my computer for web browsing and messaging and don't need something especially powerful, just something that can run bloated web pages easily and I won't have to think about again for at least half a decade.
Ideally, I want something around $300. Does anyone have recommendations for models to shop for? Anything the size of the T-Series would be adequate. I'm not a gamer or do video editing so no graphics card requirements.
I am thinking something like the T470 but wonder how futureproof that would be.
T 490/s. 8th gen Intel is new enough to be good and have H265, and the Ryzen laptop offerings of that time weren't good yet. The S is lighter, but has less expansion options. Get one without the u line processors, they get annoyingly slow over time. Can get one with a good i5 (remember, fuck the u at the end), 16 gigs of ram and 512 gigs of NVME storage for under $300. Those 3 things should keep the laptop good for at least 5 years, if not more. Especially if you're going to make it into a linux machine for the sake of privacy.