What you will be using it for? I assume this:
Personally, I have a bit different criteria when choosing a laptop: privacy, security, open source, portability.
So, because I live in Europe, best option (and maybe overall) is NovaCustom V54 Series 14.0 inch coreboot laptop - NovaCustom
Its phenomenal laptop and small company in my opinion, with open source firmware, also very “powerful”, and many other things.
Techlore have done a review about them:
But in case living in US, then I would be considering US open source options, such as system76:
About “creative tasks”, I may suggest Zorin OS Pro - Zorin OS operating system in addition to laptop, which is a paid linux version (cheap, beautiful, powerful), but it is not as secure as it should be. So maybe https://secureblue.dev/ if security is a top priority 