Depends on how real you want your Android to be, but Google Android emulator images and Androidx86 exist. Many of these apps run fine in Waydroid as well. A remote desktop UI on a Linux server/VM may be all you need.

If you have decent soldering skills, there are guides online about how you can replace the battery in devices like these by soldering a resistor and a buck converter to the battery pins so it can run permanently without turning the battery into a lithium bomb. If you set up ADB access you can control the screen remotely using scrcpy, all you'd really need is a cheap second hand phone, 20 bucks worth of parts, and a steady hand.

Cheap, commodity Android box as found on eBay, AliExpress, etc.?