The key is to get a laptop with an intake vent...which is not many laptops anymore.
5-10 years ago all laptops had intake vents, but now few of them do in the name of aesthetics (or maybe even planned obsolescence). My HP DM1 laptop didn't have any intake vents and it's a total pain to replace the thermal paste (you literally have to disassemble the entire laptop), but the fan was running really fast and loud even with the processor undervolted; so because the laptop was out of warranty I just took the bottom cover off and drilled some holes into said cover - it made a heck of a difference cooling-wise. (I'm not the only one to drill holes into the bottom cover of their laptop to improve airflow either)
If you don't have a power drill, you can instead remove the bottom cover, cut a large hole so that the fan would be exposed, get some black or grey fabric from pantyhose nylons and stretch it across entire hole and then glue it onto the inside of the laptop cover (I recommend putting weights on top of the nylons where you put the glue until it's dry).
I wouldn't be surprised if more business-focused models like HP's Elitebook series still have intake vents since they're designed more around functionality than aesthetics. For example, my sister's Elitebook 8440p with a 35w TDP Westmere i5 and a discrete Quadro GPU simply will not go above 65c due to good airflow and freshly-applied thermal paste (the fans do get moderately loud however)