Apple M1 or newer. Battery life is insane. Does “intelligence” if you need it.

That's a pretty big budget. You can afford a pretty beefy Asus with AMD innards for that. But that's only a suggestion because I don't trust any laptop enough to recommend

I picked up a refurb m1 MacBook Air, 2020 version I think, for around 800. Decent enough for a general purpose laptop. Light, fast, great battery whilst having 85% life left.

I find the MacBook Air the greatest laptop I ever had in my life.

I just bought a Tuxedo Infinity Book Pro. Impressively inexpensive, but can't comment on what it's like it yet. Other suggestion is System76, that is if you were to opt for a Linux system.

https://frame.work/

Lenovo Thinkpad X1 carbon Gen 12 preloaded with Linux... Cannot beat it

Thanks everybody for their help. I appreciate all the responses. I decided to go with my first Mac. Wife has one and we both have IPhones so I decided to go all in. 13 inch MacBook Air M4 Chip 24GB Memory 512 GB Storage $1,500 out the door https://m.primal.net/Phwq.jpg