I've soldered these kind of packages with a hot air gun in the past. The reason to use a Pico instead of an rp2040 is because many have a Pico already in their

I've soldered these kind of packages with a hot air gun in the past. The reason to use a Pico instead of an rp2040 is because many have a Pico already in their component box, it works, it's reliable, and after factoring in the cost of power regulator, USB connector etc, the cost difference is almost nothing.