Used Pixel 6, 6 Pro, 7 and 7 Pro can be found for reasonable prices these days. One of those in good condition would be a better buy because you’ll still get security patches for a while. Last time I looked, the third party OSs for Pixel phones only supported them for as long as Google did.
I don’t recommend PopOS! because I think the Gnome UI is confusing to people who have only used Windows before.