I would suggest the chromebook spin 713, 13.5" 2K - Gorilla Glass– Intel Evo Core i5 – 8GB RAM – 256GB SSD – Thunderbolt™ 4. It's considered a premium, so it's 619usd but that's still a less than any apple or Microsoft product i have seen in that category with those kinds of specs. SSD user upgradable. You can install Linux apps including vscode, Chromeos had come a long way.
It's a 13.5 3:2 and I think I remember it being about as tall as my 15.6 16:9.
Have you checked out the Huawei Matebook 14s? I had the Matebook 13 years ago and it was the best laptop I've ever used, and very similar to corresponding Apple laptops
