I have a steam deck and I’ve used controllers with phone mounts. Even though the overall weight of the SD if much more, it it way more comfortable to play for a long time because the weight is between your hands and not top heavy. Also, your phone is smaller than an 8" screen.
As to who it’s for? Every kid/teen who’d like to play ps5 from their room sometimes, even though the ps5 is set up in the family room. Every time it’s the little brother/sisters turn to have the TV and they want to watch frozen for the 47th time. When your spouse wants to binge watch more of their show on Netflix and you still want to hang out in the same room. When mom or dad want to play GTA 5 without the 7 year old see you beat a hooker with a baseball bat. When you’re sick in bed and still want to game. When you have an addiction and don’t even want to stop playing when you go to take a shit (ew).
No, this isn’t a product for everyone. This is a product for families and couples. And really, it’s not a whole lot of money by today’s standards. It’s $200 and there’s a $70 controller strapped to it. So an extra $130 gets you a screen bigger than your phones in a more comfortable spot for a screen and a battery pack.
Seems like everyone’s batching about it not doing things a switch or steam deck would do, when it’s not trying to be a switch or steamdeck. It just wants to let you play games anywhere in your house without causing problems with anyone else that lives with you.
If I had a PS5 and no steam deck, I’d want one. Half the time I use my steam deck is at home because I want to play some games from a different area of my house.