Phones are not designed for content creation (and more broadly, treat on-device development as a second-class activity at best), while PCs are much more expensi

Phones are not designed for content creation (and more broadly, treat on-device development as a second-class activity at best), while PCs are much more expensive and you could damage the Windows install by installing Linux in dual-boot. By comparison, a basic Pi is development friendly, easily fixable, fairly cheap and inexpensive to replace if broken. If you already have the peripherals, the cost is quite low.