@punkscience_ns The main Steam Deck alternative out there is the ROG Ally. You can find used ones out there for pretty cheap right now, especially since they just announced a successor a few days ago, but generally speaking, not cheaper than a Steam Deck. It's essentially a Windows laptop in a different form factor. ASUS has its flaws (as does the Ally itself) but it's put a lot of support into the Ally, far better than the other competitors out there so far.
There's also the Lenovo Legion Go, the MSI Claw and a few other Chinese Windows machines, but all are either nowhere near as supported, nowhere near as cheap or just plain hard to get without signing up for an Indiegogo and waiting months.
As far as running some Windows software is concerned, most of these Windows based machines can be used as a full on desktop replacement when docked with keyboard and mouse if you wanted to do that (and I have done so for 6 months or so).
Hope this helps. If you have any questions, feel free to ask away.