To what extent are these used for this use case vs. very inexpensive laptop computers or Chromebooks? In most of my travels I've seen a lot more extremely cheap

To what extent are these used for this use case vs. very inexpensive laptop computers or Chromebooks? In most of my travels I've seen a lot more extremely cheap laptops than ARM SBCs. I agree that there's a stronger justification for the desktop (and TV-dongle / emulation station, for which there's just a lack of better-suited competition) use case than the home lab one.