I’ve got one of the cheapest portables made a real POS but I can leave it in a rental and it doesn’t walk away. I’ve built cabinets with it doors you name it. The saw is not my limiting factor. My only suggestion would be to get a 10in blade. No bigger or smaller. Cheaper than a 12 in blade and easily cut a 2x4
I was thinking a 10" would probably be better .
The Ryobi RTS21G has been fairly well reviewed and it has the folding stand with it, I will look into this model a little more and see if anyone has found it accurate enough for simple stuff.
There are other brands, but they use rack and pinion adjustment which I don't really know much about and would rather stick to simplicity.
One thing I have noticed is the tendency for people to compare stuff like this to a regular full sized table saw and the tendency to recommend against these small saws thinking the potential buyer is looking at it as a cheaper alternative.
In my situation I don't have room for or really need a normal table saw at the moment, just some table saw capability for small projects.
For example the other day I was making a simple box out of some 1×10×36 or so shelf boards i saved from an old cabinet I threw out.
Ripping the board down the middle and such was a bit annoying with the clamp on guide and circular saw.