I've had the same laptop for seven years. Don't know much about them besides buy a Toshiba. Is this Hp Essential Laptop a good deal?

It's... Not great. It's on par with other $300 laptops, which isn't saying much. 8Gb of RAM in current year isn't really enough anymore, and the screen is basically the cheapest possible. You're looking for a laptop with a screen resolution near 1920x1080, and ideally 16 Gb of RAM.

It's gotten very hard to recommend laptops based on the brand name, since pretty much every brand has started pumping out crappy laptops to capitalize on the brand.

Like others said, try looking at business laptops, either surplus or liquidation sales. They're not great either but at least you're ideally not getting fleeced.

If you're feeling adventurous (and I'm mincing my words, this won't be a breeze if you don't know much but you'll learn a ton), the best bang for buck you can get in a portable format is a Steam Deck with USB hub + mouse and keyboard (could be travel size if you want). Can be had for less than $500, if you have the budget portable screens also exist, and for that price it beats any modern laptop under $1000. I understand that it's not exactly for everyone though.