Looking at laptops, a stylus-compatible midrange 2-in-1 with integrated AMD graphics looks like it'd be the complete package. Gonna install Linux Mint on it with Lutris, pair my Dualshock 4, and treat it as the Nintendo Switch hardware upgrade we were all denied this year🔸
Laptop update, I now have a Lenovo Flex 14 complete with stylus, 1TB storage, and 20GB of RAM. Unfortunately, both Linux Mint and Elementary OS both develop a problem where the OS partition becomes read-only after a seemingly random interval, causing the system to freeze up completely; something about this brand of NVME storage interacting with the kernel in a bad way. I couldn't find a solution, so I'm back on Windows and making the best of it; maybe I'll try it again at a later date
Every support post I found had someone in it saying "Condolences, it sounds like your hard drive is failing :(", even in cases where the hardware was new, and even in threads where the OP responded later with "I rolled back to an earlier kernel and it works now". Pretty stressful to consider, NGL
Slightly bulging computer hardware
Hmmmmmmmmm
Well, at least I caught this before the 30-day return period was up
Thinking out loud about laptops 
Return's in the mail; I'm looking forward to when they accept it. In the meantime, I'm finding that my old laptop is far more capable than I gave it credit for, in that the 2-in-1 I just returned was more of a lateral move than I thought it'd be -- so I'm thinking when the funds are back in my bank account I'll just get a modern gaming laptop instead and treat myself to an actual upgrade to the 2015-era Aspire I'm using at the moment
Thinking out loud about laptops
In the meantime, I might as well upgrade a few things about the laptop I've got -- partly to make it more usable in the interim, partly to make it more appealing for when I resell it. I picked up a replacement fan, an aftermarket wifi card, and some fresh thermal paste; I'll be installing all three when I replace the primary storage with the hard drive this system originally came with (currently being used as its secondary).
Thinking out loud about laptops
As a wonderful hatchday gift, my laptop return was approved! I will thankfully not have to get it repaired by Lenovo then sell it as a well-loved last-year's-model via a week-long eBay auction starting at 1/5th the machine's original retail price and hope for the following 30 days that it doesn't show the same defect in the new buyer's hands. As for what I'll be getting instead, I'll see what options are available at the start of June.
Thinking out loud about laptops
It's looking like "what's available at the start of June" is going to be a bunch of models from last year or earlier, because everybody's buying a new computer to work from home and manufacturers aren't running at capacity (which I support, they really shouldn't). My absolute bare-minimum is 9th-gen i5/3rd-gen Ryzen + GeForce 1650 + 10-key input + SATA bay; hopefully the better companies plan to restock or release new models at some point soon
Thinking out loud about laptops
It's also got to last; I lucked out with my 2015 Aspire but also had to replace a few parts over the years. I side-eye Lenovo after the machine I had to send back, and I've heard Dell machines aren't great about this.
Man, if they just had a current-gen Aspire 7 in stock/at MSRP it would suit my needs perfectly
Thinking out loud about laptops
Found an ASUS TUF laptop new/on discount that checks all the boxes, so I pulled the trigger on it rather than waiting for post-COVID computer manufacturing infrastructure to spin back up to meet my incredibly specific needs. It's a gaming laptop with the WASD keyboard keys highlighted, but the backlight is at least multicolor and not Virtual Boy red (which was my main concern)
Thinking out loud about laptops
Just finished my basic-ass amateur refurbishment of the 2015 laptop, it's now running Prime95 at 60C like a champ. I plan to spend the rest of my early evening testing and prodding at it for a bit, after which I'll snap a bunch of photos, throw it on eBay, and buy a decent/upgradable fightstick with the revenues. 
Thinking out loud about laptops
Just to provide closure on this: After a false start with a unit that had a single bad keyboard key I finally received what appears to be a fully working machine: an FA506IV-BR7N12. I deliberately chose one with a 60Hz screen (I've heard when you go above it's hard to go back), and was pleased to find it also had an HDD bay; now to get back to whatever I was doing back when I last had a computer I could use outside a tiny corner of my room
Thinking out loud about laptops :servbot_at_work:
@Lobst and don't forget, it's got a tactical gaming numpad
On the bright side, I did discover in my testing that both Paint Tool SAI 2 and Clip Studio Paint EX seem to work well (stylus pressure sensitivity included) on new versions of WINE. I look forward to when the storage problem is actually fixed, since it seems like this machine will live up to my every expectation at that point