February 25th is when payment opens for the Deck. The first units will only begin shipping on February 28th. If this was a game that opened for pre-orders on the 25th and for download on the 28th there would be no argument at all that game's release date would be the 28th. Why is hardware any different?
Topic on PCGamingWiki talk:News
Sorry that's my bad, admittedly I didn't look over the news post too closely and missed the second date for orders being shipped. Valve were a bit misleading too in their title, though I wonder what the "release" date of the console will be considered as due tot he unique nature of how the Deck is being sold.
Anyway thanks for pointing it out, I've reworded the title to focus on the shipping date instead.
Not your fault honestly, everywhere I looked (articles, reddit, discord, etc.) people are going with Valve's blog title verbatim as well. I also agree with you the title is misleading.