Some really good beats packed into the SNES.

There are a lot of good songs, but today I will pick Megalovania by Toby Fox. https://youtu.be/KK3KXAECte4

I believe it is where I am too, 36+ is full-time for benefits requirements. Apparently the insurance company asked my employer to please make sure I was working at least 36hrs a week, because for a month or so I was only getting to 32.

I feel like you’ll end up having to pick some compromises, or spend a lot of money. I think your best bet would be a desktop PC that has a bit more punch for less money than a laptop would be, and then also buy a laptop for your actual laptop needs, if you can find used options you might come in at budget. A laptop with integrated graphics can handle some games, you probably need to pick non-graphic intense games for gaming on the go.

There are some new laptops coming out from Qualcomm that have a Snapdragon X, and they are not as versatile or powerful as Intel or AMD, but they are incredibly power efficient and cheaper. (They are new so we’ll see how that pans out )

$1000 is not enough IMO for a catchall laptop with a modern GPU, AI capable, power efficient, repairable, and lightweight. A 800$ desktop and a $200 laptop/Chromebook/used thinkpad and SSD can probably cover your real use case of school laptop and also gaming/AI at home.