You can get better specs and pretty much the same UI experience from competitors by installing Bazzite, only the lack of a trackpad might turn some people off depending on what type of game they’re playing…
Unless you referring specifically to the original deck’s screen, I dont see a point in paying way more for specs that if you try using will get you a battery life of 30min.
And as someone who thought the trackpads were pointless: they make a lot of games you wouldn’t expect perfectly playable. I personally have been playing stellaris on the deck and it’s been great.
If you don’t mind being plugged in then the better specs can be used without having to worry about the battery, some options have a bigger screen and better resolution, some options have a bigger battery than the Deck (double the Deck’s battery in the Ally X) , as I mentioned the trackpad isn’t essential to everyone (if you’re always playing games with controllers anyway, you’re probably not playing RTS or city builders)…
It’s ok for the Deck to not be the only option people should consider, it’s nice of Valve to develop stuff, it’s a good thing that they have competitors.
I have to say, I have and like my Steam Deck OLED, but there are multiple solutions for desktop mode in other handhelds I prefer to Steam’s weirdo dual touchpads. The platonic ideal is GPD’s physical keyboard and optical trackball thingy, paired with their stick mouse emulation switch, but there are things like the Lenovo Legion Go’s single touchpad that also work.
Bazzite supports the Legion Go’s detachable dual controllers surprisingly well, too. I was shocked, considering how weird and proprietary they are. You can’t even get Switch Joycon support that good on a desktop PC.
