It's probably been 15 years since I've used Linux and Mint seems to be the recommended distro for people who aren't all that familiar with Linux like me, but I didn't know if there was anything I should know with this ThinkPad model that anyone is familiar with. My searching around shows people saying everything from it was painless to install to they had tons of issues and I have no idea how common either one is.
Does it have dual batteries? My t470s does a hard shutdown instead of switching battery source when the first battery is empty sometimes. It's an old bug and I think the consensus is that no one is really sure why.