Orange Pi Neo Linux gaming handheld starts at $499 with Ryzen 7840U, Ryzen 8840U at $599

Most of the handheld benchmarks have been 3% or 4% higher compared to the Steamdeck at 15 watts, which often is a 1 to 4 FPS difference. This would explain why Valve isn't in a hurry for a Steamdeck 2. If you plan of playing on battery, then that is what you'll probably running around that if you plan on playing a while. The main advantage of these newer chips is when used plugged in.

I'm not really sure core and thread count is a good metric. The steam deck is getting more specific support and there's more to consider about a CPU.

Steamdeck performance is still pretty good though, imo the most important factor in the handheld pc market is battery life. If games take a 5% hit to performance for an extra 40 minutes of battery life, the tradeoff becomes obvious to me.

Taking lessons from Nintendo. At least it’s not backwards/downwards firing, but doing this kind of shit requires a manufacturer to be as daft as Dell. That’s not an easy feat to achieve

the Dual Intelligent Touchpad further enhances your gaming experience by providing responsive and immersive motion controls

Ah, I missed that part. Though it feels like they're a bit too low on the face to be used comfortably.