I’m only saying this because I’ve seen a few videos about windows users switching to linux mint lately. Having to update the kernel for the computer to work is a common occurrance. IMO the newest available one should be the default one. We should strive towards giving new users the best possible first impression of linux.
I don’t know specifically about the T470, but if you have an nvidia GPU, you might have issues depending on how the display outputs are connected to the GPUs. I had a T420s at some point with an nvidia GPU, and it was a PITA to get the display output to work on linux. I had to permanently enable the nvidia GPU for that to work (cutting battery life in half), because the display output was connected only to the nvidia GPU. I swore to never buy an nvidia product ever again after that experience.