While I agree more information about hardware could be useful in the post, I disagree with the just try it yourself attitude. Aside from seeing if it boots up or has significant graphical glitches, how do you expect someone who never used Linux before to judge anything about a distro but its looks? It's only natural for people who don't know about a topic to ask knowledgeable people to make judgements for them.

when you can install the likes of PopOs within 15 minutes, or Tumbleweed in 30 (just using those examples because I’ve installed them recently), then just install it and see goes it goes.

Or as you said, if a distro has a live usb you may not even need to install to test.