I would agree that if you’re looking to buy a cheap computer an older Thinkpad beats a Chromebook by a long shot. Main benefit to Chromebooks is that if you get lucky you can obtain them for free, mine was permanently loaned to me by my high school (I didn’t technically steal it from them, they just never asked for it back). I would’ve much preferred an old Thinkpad with Coreboot but the Chromebook was free so I can’t really complain.
I would agree that if you’re looking to buy a cheap computer an older Thinkpad beats a Chromebook by a long shot. Main benefit to Chromebooks is that if you get lucky you can obtain them for free, mine was permanently loaned to me by my high school (I didn’t technically steal it from them, they just never asked for it back). I would’ve much preferred an old Thinkpad with Coreboot but the Chromebook was free so I can’t really complain.