I was thinking more for the sort of non-technical users a Chromebook would suit, which at a minimum means pre-installed with little or no admin needed. Chromebooks are a great idea, it's just a pity they're so deeply intertwined with Google services (though given way the consumer market has developed, some such corporate entanglement is I suppose inevitable).

Ah, yeah. I don't think anyone sells laptops with Silverblue pre-installed, so that would be a hurdle. After that though, IMO Silverblue fits the bill very well, and may surprise you with how polished its update/upgrade flow is, especially compared to Debian-family distros.

Regular Fedora Workstation is my standard OS these days, so I suspect Silverblue may be in my own future. I look forward to giving it a try when time allows & curiosity overwhelms!

Aside from Linux distros per se though, I think there's a need for something like ChromeOS (preinstalled, appliance-like, as foolproof as possible), but without the deep single-corp dependence. Unfortunately I don't think the market in its current state is capable of filling this need.