Are all these low end x86 devices based on the Intel N series because AMD has given up the low end CPU market to Intel?

You rarely see an AMD CPU in such devices.

In ST (GB 6), the N150 scores around 1,300 which is comparable to i7-6970HQ (high-end laptop Skylake CPU from 2015.

Both the N150 and i7-6970HQ are quad core CPUs, N150 seems to have a MT score of around ~3,000 while the Skylake i7-6970HQ is around ~4,500, so the N150 is significantly behind MT even when going against a CPU (with an equal number of cores) from a decade ago.

The fact that MeLE Overclock X2 only takes single channel memory is further going to undermine performance.

I always thought it was a choice for tdw and heat concerns. Intel tends to run a bit cooler (used to)

I honestly don't know what Intel TDW is/was like for low-end SKUs.

But with AMD I can't even think of a low end SKU.

Ryzen 5 9600 goes for almost $300 where I live.

Funny world we live in where Intel operates on the low end, while AMD seems to have given up on that market.

Yeah... that is how big empires fall I suppose. complacency