#but honestly buying macs for my entire adult life left me unprepared for the sheer number of options available

[kawuli]

so I'm about to start a new job that will require me to have a laptop that's better than this one, which I got for like $700 6 years ago. Doesn't need to be top-of-the-line, but I need to be able to comfortably write code and process medium-size (up to a few GB) datasets. Would like actual ports (headphone jack, USB-A, USB-C and HDMI, ideally). I'm currently running linux, and will probably continue to do so.

I want a relatively lightweight laptop for commuting and travel, but it doesn't need to be ultralight. Before my current laptop I had a series of 13" MacBooks/Pros and liked them, but between price and the increasingly annoying sandboxing of MacOS I'm probably not going back.

Anybody have recommendations?