Banana Pi is working on the upcoming Banana Pi BPI-M7 SBC powered by Rockchip RK3588 SoC whose low profile design reminds me of boards from Khadas such as
The Banana Pi BPI-M7 single board computer is equipped with up to 32GB RAM and 128GB eMMC flash, and features an M.2 2280 socket for one NVMe SSD, three display interfaces (HDMI, USB-C, MIPI DSI), two camera connectors, dual 2.5GbE, WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2, a few USB ports, and a 40-pin GPIO header for expansion.
This is the only question that really matters. If it's overpriced? meh, it's a cheap alternative to a NUC. But if it's going to be stuck on obsolete software forever, run.
??? Armbian is open-source. Some boards eventually get stuff from Armbian merged back into upstream Debian however you’re still better running Armbian as it comes with optimizations to avoid burning SD cards etc.