The weight isn’t all that bad. I’ve been running around with it all day on vacations and wasn’t bothered by it. The size imho is more important. I paid ~1400€ used. All the cameras with interchangeable lens systems are in similar price ranges unfortunately. The more compact ones are even more expensive. There is a very compact sony one with integrated zoom lens i forgot the name of that goes for more than 2k€ The ricoh gr iv is similarly priced and has a fixed zoom lens and no EVF and in sunny daylight no evf is a no go imho. The displays on cameras are usually much darker than smartphone displays so you really need an evf.

If you want to safe a bit of money you can go for the a6400. it has a couple of compromises but isn’t all that much worse purely for photography.

But yeah cameras are expensive. But they last you much longer than smartphones and the retail price is fairly stable. There is 10 year old ones that still go for a significant chunk of the original price on the used market