[Hobbes]

So just looking at Chargen options, around 100k Budget.

Transys Avalon with Rating 4 Stealth Dongle, Program Carrier Mod with Virtual Toolbox - Smoke and Mirrors&Stealth. 
You've got a Persona with A: - ;S:10; D:6; F:6.  and 5 points of noise.  85k+ program carrier (but see below...)

vs. Little Hornet with two Program Carriers (Stealth and Encryption).   
Stats are 5 4 1 1  with a permanent +1 to Sleaze and Firewall.  89,700 plus 2*Program carriers + costs of programs.

Same ballpark cost for a resources A character.   

Upsides to the Commlink, touch cheaper.  Goes places the Cyberdeck doesn't.  Can be much cheaper if you drop the rating on the Sleaze Dongle.  - 8 6 6 would cost 25k + program carrier.  So if you're trying to do a resources B Decker, or street level decker, this is probably the best option.  Also not a bad back up for a Resources A decker with a little spare cash.
Downsides to the Commlink.  File protection stops you cold, you'll have to use Edge on each and every protected file.  No other programs, like Browse, Signal Scrub, or Agents.  1/2 search time inside a Host while on a hack is huge.  Agents are damn handy.  Also, you can't do squat about VR Technomancers and Sprites.  Not a thing.  Sit there and get abused or go wireless off, those are your two choices.  Several of the better Decker positive qualities are n/a for Commlinks.

My friend the Little Hornet.  With Perfect Time and Overclocker, you really only care about one stat.  You'll have a limit of 6 (7 if you've got time to load the appropriate program) for any Attack or Data Processing action, 7 Firewall, up to 12 Sleaze.  Downsides, karma costs of Perfect Time and Overclocker.  Crap PAN compared to the Commlink.  This is a deck that will work for most Deckers until they start hitting dice pools of 20 routinely. 

Honestly for an experienced player there isn't much reason to go with a Cyberdeck if you didn't want to. - 8 6 6 for 25k frees up a tremendous amount of resources.  Metahuman Deckers that are down to Resources C or B, or a Decker with a full Samurai Suite of Augments can probably get by with a Sleaze Dongle Commlink.  You've got more than enough limits to AR hack devices, no real issues with hacking a Host other than File Protection.  And likely 16ish dice to resist Matrix Perception when you're running silent, so until you blow a Sleaze roll, or the dice bounce the other way, you're invisible. 

The actual "problem" is Smoke and Mirrors and +5 Sleaze, because - 3 6 6 isn't a viable array for a Decker.  And if you go with a Rating 4 or 5 Sleaze Dongle, you could just as well get the Little Hornet or another low end Cyberdeck. 

[Csjarrat]

The other problem is noise, that's where an actual deck wins out by a long stretch. You either pay deck money for a dongle and then use all your antenna and datajack slots to get you back to zero, or you buy a deck, have decent sleaze and then have actual noise reduction

[Jack_Spade]

Noise isn't much of a concern if you use Fresnel Fabric. 7 points of noise reduction in addition to all other options should be enough for almost any situation.

[Csjarrat]

Noise isn't much of a concern if you use Fresnel Fabric. 7 points of noise reduction in addition to all other options should be enough for almost any situation.

which you can't get at chargen and only appears to mitigate noise related to distance to a specific target device, not a generic NR bonus

[Jack_Spade]

There's nothing about distance in the text, only that it's directional (which is exactly what you need to punch through interfering signals)
Restricted gear makes it possible out of chargen (preferably as part of fancy armor)

[Rooks]

There's nothing about distance in the text, only that it's directional (which is exactly what you need to punch through interfering signals)
Restricted gear makes it possible out of chargen (preferably as part of fancy armor)

Think what he means is its Avail 14 so you gotta burn a restrictive item quality to get it

[Jack_Spade]

Yes. Depending on your GM you might get away with a very specialized bit of armor that has all kinds of stuff integrated.

That said, it's usually not much of a problem to gain a coat or armor bag with this modification after play starts.
The new ponchos from Hard Targets are a prime candidate for that.

[Csjarrat]

Yeah, you've got to line it up with the thing you're trying to connect to, so it mitigates area noise at source and destination. I would highly doubt it cancels out noise made by your own software

[Jack_Spade]

Beside the fact that the rules are silent about that, the software noise can be compensated with the other things like receiver, datajack(s), etc.

[Csjarrat]

Beside the fact that the rules are silent about that, the software noise can be compensated with the other things like receiver, datajack(s), etc.

Run and gun pg 85:

Reduce the Noise penalty by the rating of the Fabric. The
Noise reduction is directional and the wearer needs to align
their body in the direction of the device they are trying to
connect with  (emphasis mine)

pretty clear to me. it only works for external noise when you're trying to connect to a device in a known location.

[Jack_Spade]

Yes, and the quoted text does not mention that the source of the noise is of any relevance. What it says is you have to turn into the direction of the thing you want to connect with to compensate any noise at either end.

I agree with you that logically "software noise" should be handled differently or rather that smoke and mirrors shouldn't use noise in the first place but a separate dice penalty, but the designers wrote it as noise and therefore all sources of noise compensations work by RAW

[Hobbes]

Well, what Fresnel Fabric allows is an early upgrade to a decker after a couple runs that lets the Fabric handle "outside" noise while the Datajacks and Antenna handle the penalty from Smoke and Mirrors. 

It's not particularly expensive, and the Availability is well within the reach of most Fixers.  6,000 Nuyen and Availability 14?  Throw it in a 900 Nuyen Cloak from Hard Targets and get your Cape on! 

Really not necessary for a Decker to have out of the gate, you can always dial back the Smoke and Mirrors a tick if you're in a very noisy area.  Really what GM is going to throw a high noise penalty at a starting decker on the first couple runs?