The best thermal camera is the one you allways have with you when you need it.
i went with a smartphone that has a built in camera like a IIIF150 Raptor, AGM G1S, ulefone power 19t, dodgy v31gt etc.
its at least 400 bucks at minimum. but keep in mind they can become outdated in a few years and may not be viable as a every day use smartphone anymore, they still serve as a dedicated thermal camera then at least.
im not a fan of standalone thermal imagers, you either forgot them or didnt charge the battery. they are bulky, mostly much more expensive and lack features and performance.
dongles are a little more convenient and cheaper but they are small, only held in by a flimsy usb port, easy to lose and whats a dongle that you forgot at home.
the lineup of those 256x192 dongles are unbeatable in terms of thermal imaging performance for its price.
tooltop t7, mileseey tr256i, topdon tc001, infiray p2 etc. they can be had starting at like just 120 bucks. latter two can even be used on a PC
dont bother with poor (lepton..) and pricey flir based ones unless you want thermal accuracy over just seeing a thermal difference (like for plumbing, electronics repair etc.)
the Hikmicro one armandine2 posted uses the same core as the dongles but has way less compute performance than your average smartphone,
for a beginner i would go with any of the dongles i mentioned above.
i got myself a infiray p2 back then which i now use above my workbench as a electronic troubleshooting helper as i switched to a more convenient thermal smartphone, iiif150 raptor.