I loved Mint. It's still great. Recently I installed Linux on a family member's laptop which is not upgradeable to Windows 11. Hate to say it (and I may be a bit petty here): Mint looks dated, Cinnamon needs a facelift.
That was a reason I went with Zorin. It clearly tries to transition users that come from Windows with it's design (honestly, it's modded Gnome looks awesome). Even running .exe files is as simple as just opening them. Zorin will either just run them or suggest a Linux alternative. Had no issues with that OS so far.
That said, Mint or Ubuntu are solid choices for beginners (and pros alike).