I (and many of my colleagues) do this since I switched to laptop 7 years ago. I use them during my whole time in university (CS using Linux).
They are very reliable. And (at least the old models that I use) can be fixed manualy when something is wrong (change SSD, RAM, thermal paste,…)
If money is no issue, I would go with a framework (I have no first hand experience with them). If money is to be considered, I would go with a refurbished ThinkPad.
This makes lemmy almost not usable for me. If I sort posts by active or hot, I get 80% posts that are older than 2 years. Always with new comments.
I belive that fixing the sorting algorithms is extremely important for lemmys success.