It’s still not a desktop PC. You’ll notice that iOS, Android and iPadOS aren’t included in the list either, even though the devices that run those operating systems can also replicate some subset of the desktop pc experience (and much more comprehensively than the steam deck can).
At best it would be a general purpose mobile device, but even that is rather contrived. How many users do you imagine are using a steam deck as a substitute for a desktop or a different mobile device? I would guess something very close to 0.
Anecdotal but I bring my steam deck with a dock and M&K with me when I visit family since I don't have a desktop computer there.
Also, the Steam Deck's OS is by far the closest you can get to a traditional Linux distro since it's GNU+Linux under the hood. The built-in desktop mode is extremely close to a basic KDE Arch install, especially after you disable read-only mode. Android doesn't have as full-featured of a desktop experience unless we count Samsung DeX and even then display out is available on a vast minority of devices. iOS has no native display out and iPadOS doesn't even support normal 16:9 screens without black borders. The issue with all of the above devices is that their "desktop" modes are janky afterthoughts while on the Steam Deck it's a core feature.
Your guess is very wrong. I've been using my deck as a laptop occasionally, and I've seen a lot of posts on a sub on the recently deceased site of people using it as such.
And why not? It's basically a touchscreen laptop without a keyboard and with a small screen.
Also, the deck does not replicate a subset of the desktop experience, it just contains a desktop experience. Unless the KDE desktop is not a desktop now. If that's the case - it runs windows.
> that run those operating systems can also replicate some subset of the desktop pc experience
But Steam Deck is just running a fork of Arch not some other operating system. From analytics perspective it's indistinguishable to any Linux PC. Also IIRC you can just connect it a display which would turn into a desktop PC.
> At best it would be a general purpose mobile device, but even that is rather contrived. How many users do you imagine are using a steam deck as a substitute for a desktop or a different mobile device?
Is it contrived? They've shown, in their official marketing videos, demonstrations of the steam deck being hooked up to an external monitor and being used to run KDE and Windows 10.
SteamDecks are indistinguishable from PCs, since they run more or less exactly the same software as a Linux desktop/laptop would.