I haven’t had much luck in finding inexpensive refurbished. If you have any suggestions on where to look, that would be great. I see laptops the same generation as mine (albeit with much better specs) with the same price as current laptops. A total ripoff!
Nope. I despise the Thinkpad keyboard layout and particularly the trackpoint.
A long time ago, I inherited a Thinkpad when they used to be solid and heavy. The nub permanent injured my hand. The keyboard on the other hand was marvellous. I tried many types of mouse inputs and have settled for a cheap mini mouse, enough to rest the fingers.
To me a 2-5 year old computer does not sound attractive at all. I would not go older than 2 years.
This said, my Lenovo Flex was a refurb. Hardware gets into the refurb circle for all sort of reasons. Leasing, warranty returns, display models. Mine is a mid 2017 model and I bought it late 2018. At that time 8th gen Intel was still going very strong. It has some scratched around the safety lock, so I presume it was a display model.
BTW, the 11th gen Intel (Tiger Lake) seems to get even with AMD for a similar price with some Intel benefits thrown in (Thunderbolt, external GPU comes to mind). 2in1 models are slowly appearing as I type and I will probably go for a new one in early 2021.
My i5 8th gen 8Gb RAM is still going fast enough and would be fully sufficient for photo editing.
Yes, the 11th gen is a bit more interesting but not yet there for me.
With two new old challengers (AMD and ARM), it will be interesting to see what is around the corner. Once we get past the pandemic and global unrest, and our cybernetics are safe… 
My reasons not the upgrade just yet. In reality, I don’t need and can’t afford to. — Maybe quantum computers to handle to blockchaining. 
I apologize if I came across as rude or insensitive. It was not my
intention – I was just trying to help. I hope you can find a decent,
affordable laptop soon.
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