Yea this is where I envision this working best for me. I travel for work and have been playing a ton on RetroPie lately. I wouldn’t mind being able to bring a SBC of some sort and being able play higher end games on the hotel TV. I don’t like lugging around a bunch of extra stuff.
Now I'm curious: GPs ~$500, lets say max double the volume of a Switch + Dock, even if we exclude the screen and input devices seems like a quite tall order.
You can build some fairly impressive SFF PCs, but even an InWin Chopin breaks that volume budget if I've done the math right, and it's not a cheap hobby. They to me feel like a class above this.
You could definitely go eGPU + intel NUC and tape them together for 2x Switch + Dock. M2 nvme drives are tiny and I think some boards take laptop memory. You really only need the equivalent of a gtx 970 to do 1080p which probably exists in Pci x4.
Nuc makes a model called a Hades Canyon that is an awesome gaming rig for its form factir. 4k at mid-range settings, 1080p at anything you can throw at it. (And I'll be honest... Maybe I'm getting old, but from 2 feet away I can't tell the differece between 1080 and 4k.)
Not quite double, I waited for a ~$700 deal, but yeah, you pay a premium for the form factor. If you aren't looking to optimize both performance and small form factor, $500 is reasonable. Less if you can recycle an old case, psu, etc.
Yeah, I didn't want to build so I sprang for an Intel Nuc Hades Canyon, and it was a significant, massive upgrade from my 3yr old gaming rig. And it streams through Hamachi like a champ.
Hotel internet seems to be about 10 years behind the current technology at all times.