Software support is also going to be an important part of the price - the Steam Deck made sense to me because it was Linux being shipped to a few variants of the same hardware so there's less involuntary guesswork/fucking around than there would be with a handheld-shaped PC and no OS to go with it.

That being said at this price they should have figured out (after bundling a damn controller with the thing!) how to offer some discounted SSD/HDD enclosures with it so you can have it double-duty as a home-theater PC/Jellyfin server. Would also make a straight upgrade from an old computer easier (just pull the game drive).