CapibaraZero: A cheap alternative to FlipperZero based on ESP32-S3

It depends what you want to do with it and how many modules you want to hang off it (or not). The 'entry level ' one is the M5stickC, which is about the size of your thumb, has a couple of buttons, a screen, a grove connector (to attach peripherals), an accelerometer, a real time clock chip, and a battery for around $20.

All their stuff is programmable in C or in MicroPython, and they have a Scratch-type building-block interface called UIflow which lets you prototype in MP very fast, and is extensible with your own modules. You kind of need it even if you're competent in Python because the documentation tends to be barebones and focus on the electronic schematics, so the UIflow software components are the API documentation.

Expressif's own documentation is very good so this may be changing since they acquired M5stack, but I still find UIflow the fastest way to get hands-on with a new module.

Great to hear the docs are good.