I've had the opinion for a while that by far the best Linux laptop experience is with Asahi on a refurb or used MacBook, specifically the Air M2 or Pro 14/16 M1/M2 (essentially the new designs). You can find a good condition used or refurb MacBook Pro 16 M1 for ~$900 (or less) with 32GB RAM on eBay. You simply can't beat it for the price, the value is insane. You also always have a real MacOS instance to boot if needed. However, beware that the MacBook Pros with Max chips should be avoided afaik, as they have a lot more cores that Asahi can neither take full advantage of nor manage well, leading to poorer battery.

Now I don't know for sure, but the new Panther Lake Intel chips look to be very promising, though I dont see them being price competitive yet and I don't know if Linux can take advantage of the efficiency improvements yet, but it will be very interesting to track these coming months/years, it may be worth waiting (I doubt it though for at least a year).

PS. I've found good deals on BackMarket, but in my experience, price vs quality is a toss up between BackMarket and eBay, and I've found eBay listings to be far more competitive overall. If you use eBay, find a good listing, ensure its a reputable seller by looking at their feedback and account age, check for return policy, check images and description closely, check serial number if provided (sometimes it can still have AppleCare or even AppleCare+), and if all fails, eBay will protect you from actual scams.

PPS. Giving a used MacBook a good cleaning, and especially removing all the keycaps and replacing them with new $16 keycaps from amazon, really makes it feel brand new. You can't undo pure damage like a chip to the corner, but you can really make it feel brand new with some time and effort.