Telebotomy perhaps

Maybe. But that means a lot more diy, and once your done with buying a pi, screen, battery, and all the 3d prints, you’re in about $160 anyway.

It’s much smaller, lighter, and cheaper than a steam deck. Seems good for emulating retro games. Definitely a niche product, but cool.

The prestige behind the thinkpad brand specifically predates lenovo. They bought it from IBM in '05. AFAIK they’ve always been seen as reliable, well built laptops, albeit a bit pricier.

As far as spyware, with win11 being what it is your options are install Linux or live with it no matter which manufacturer you go with.

I really wish it was easier to open up a TV, rip out all the compute and replace it with a custom display driver. Someone could unironically make a decent amount of money selling diy TV stupidification kits

You just have to deal with all the smart garbage every time you turn it on