Valve won't be releasing a Steam Deck with more performance until at least 2025. Given the smartphone market's reputation for disappointing incremental updates, this is the right choice. Valve should, however, throw gamers a bone with a Steam Deck 1.5.
The term “mid-generation” is pretty meaningless here as well. This is a first gen product, we have no idea how long they intend this version to remain relevant. We have no idea if they ever really planned a direct sequel device. We know really nothing. All these articles about a supposed follow-up device are pretty worthless IMO. There is zero reason to expect that Valve would be treating this the same as a normal console.