I bought my wife a Steam Deck and she loves it, her biggest complaint is that it's a bit too big for women's hands. She isn't highly technical but I haven't had to provide much in the way of assistance, it largely just works.
I don’t mind the size but it does make it prohibitively more difficult to travel with compared to the Switch (slightly) but especially so compared to old handhelds like the DS and Vita.
I generally keep my Steam Deck at home and play from the couch. It’s awesome to be able to pick it up, play a game for 15 minutes, hit the power button to suspend. Come back later and pickup where I left off. The Switch does this as well but the Steam Deck supports games more my genre and style so it gets more use.
It's a bit big for my hands as well, but the huge touch screen is amazing for programs like sunvox so I don't even mind.
I think it's hard to genuinely appreciate how big the thing is until you hold it. Today I realized it's exactly the same size as my keyboard. And almost as wide as a 12-inch macbook.
The size opinion varies dramatically by person, apparently, because everyone I’ve personally talked to (including women) prefers the Steam Deck’s larger size over the Switch. (The Switch is so tiny!)