Linux shines also on low-end laptops as long as you're still decent hardware. Nowdays it's still generally an intel core with integrated graphics, memory and I/O controller, so the result will be pretty much the same. Old, good laptops work even better than brand new editions of current laptop lines.

But this doesn't save you from crappy hardware, which is why this kind of argument is a non-starter for me. How well does current windows editions work on low-end crappy laptops that sell for the lowest tier? Not great. These laptops have plenty of little issues on windows as well.

Maybe better than linux, because the drivers have way more work-arounds than linux has.

Have you ever seen the internal linux quirks table to work around buggy and downright horrid hardware? That's what you get with those. If it works at all is thanks to the patience of people that put in the time to work those issues around. I frankly do not blame linux if it doesn't work well with such hardware.