Maybe this is a hot take. However, a lot of the Chromebooks that were deployed by schools during covid are build like tanks while being super lightweight and having great battery life. Meanwhile the old thinkpads are 10 years old and are probably starting to wear down. Many Chromebooks support coreboot these days so theoretically they have the potential to be more private and secure. Some of them are also arm which means that they are more efficient from an architecture perspective.
Edit:
I like how incredibly controversial this is. I have successfully split the votes
Probably we don’t need new Thinkpads. And the old either. The main motivation behind the desire of people to by old Thinkpads is a desire to be a part of the club and culture, to look like a hacker, a geek. The same motivation had early apple fanboys. I hope smarter people will become less dependent from such crowdthinking phenomena not more.
Old thinkpads work well and (opposite of Apple) they are cheap. I buy them from familiarity but am open to other suggestions in that price range.
Don’t feed the trolls, please.