Lenovo has fantastic recent refurbs. It's a bit of a game, but you can find some for around 400$ or less.
My big beef with Macs is I need BIG ssds. If I want to get a 4TB SSD on a Macbook it starts at around 3000$. Recently I purchased a laptop with 2 SSD slots, although disappointingly only one is easy to access.
I'm tempted to go to Microcenter and tell them to replace the stock SSD with a 4TB( the stock SSD is the one behind a difficult to remove heat sink), and then I'd put another 4 tb ssd. Alternatively I could just pay 800$ for a 8TB SSD, install it in a laptop that cost around 1300-1500$ and I'm only spending 2300$.
On a Mac that's about 5000$. I make music and hate external drives with a passion.
https://maxrozen.com/replacing-my-macbook-m1-with-thinkpad-t...
and a quick buyers guide here:
https://maxrozen.com/getting-your-own-good-enough-laptop-for...