Home device is a vague term, so I'd need to know how that's defined, but tentatively I'd say sure, it could be a home device. On the other hand, a laptop is not a desktop as it is different in key functions. For example, I cannot modify my laptop in the same way I could a desktop.

The same logic as to why it is a portable console that happens to be able to connect to a TV can be flipped just as easily the other way. It has all of the features of a home console. It can connect to a TV out of the box, be played on external power, connect with add ons and external controllers etc. Therefore, the Switch is a home console that just so happens to be able to have a screen.

As for dependence, that's just a clever way to try and frame a feature as a lack of something. You're basically saying it lacks not having a battery and a screen. The more natural and accurate way to say that is that it has a battery and screen.

To avoid getting hung on semantics, let's focus on physical reality. Whatever semantics you want to use, to meet your requirement would not require adding anything tangible, as in functionality or hardware, to the Switch.  You are suggesting that the Switch would be a home console if we took out the battery and screen.  There is nothing we need to add to reach your standard, therefore, it is not lacking anything, it just has something extra. And I don't know why having those extra features would disqualify it from being a home console.

By the same logic, you could argue it is not a handheld because it lacks dependence on built in controllers, a built in screen, or battery power.

So... is any portable console that can connect to a TV also a home console? Is the Analogue Pocket a home console?

It's very simple. The Switch has the form factor of a handheld, the hardware of a handheld and the features of a handheld. The fact that it CAN also be connected to the TV doesn't make it a home console. The Switch is not a stationary device, which is what a home console is. The Switch is a device you can take with you anywhere you want. That's what separates both categories: the ability to take it somwhere else or the inability to do so. Because yes: having certain features makes something one thing or another. A moped and a motorcycle are different kinds of vehicles: one can't get past 50 km/h and cannot be used in freeways and the other doesn't have those limitations because it has different specifications. But nothing stops me from only using my motorcycle at 50 km/h and only driving outside of freeways. Would that make my motorcycle a moped? Of course not, just like the Switch is not a home console just because you can use it as one.

To me it's a very clear matter. If you still want to go on about this... I'm sorry, but it's such a silly conversation to me that I'll just leave it here xD

Hybrid just means it's part home console and part handheld. From a marketing niche standpoint, I don't think it's comparable to platforms that are exclusively home console or exclusively handheld because its sales patterns are not going to be the same as either. It's not a case where it would be something down the middle, either, it's more like it has the advantages of both a home console and a handeld, but also some of the disadvantages.

Just a short version of one of my earlier posts from years ago to try to illustrate how Switch/hybrids have the benefits of both handhelds and home consoles:

A Switch can start as a home console, multiple users including household members and friends. One of the benefits is that a friend plays it then wants one for their household. With handhelds, the main spread - which really took off back on the original gameboy with Pokemon - was the fact that people could pick up the console and play with multiple others during lunch hours or visiting friends, etc... Switch can spread both ways. It has a higher sales potential than home consoles because even if it begins as a household system, there's the chance someone's picking that up and taking it to work to play Mario Kart at lunch and/or multiple members of the household pick up their own Switches to use as personal handhelds. Also, to Switch's benefit, the value proposition on software is higher than a traditional handheld - it's closer to a home console.

In some ways, the compounding of benefits might make hybrids like the Switch exceed the sum of their parts - that is, they could perform better than the combined sales potential of a separate handheld and home console. Switch is has already demonstrated this over the last generation of Nintendo hardware.

G'day folks, can we please remain on topic?

"Switch is a handheld/console/hybrid" has been done to death for the last 5+ years, and isn't the subject of this thread.

The analogue pocket far as I'm aware does not include a dock, so if we're talking about the product as a whole, no it is not a home console or marketed as such. One can use it as a home console, but the product in general is not a home console any more than a treadmill is coat rack even if some people may use it as such. 

Again, your argument is easily flipped. The Switch has features such as the ability to use external controllers, controllers not connected to the body, the ability to connect to a TV, to support multiple players on one device, connect hardware through USB/equivalent ports, features that have always been on Nintendo home consoles, and never on their portable line. It can be stationary just as easily as being portable. It has all of the features common to Nintendo's home consoles in the past. So I don't know why you couldn't just as easily call it a home console that can be used portably.

On the other hand, a moped definitionally cannot be a motorcycle. A moped by definition has a an engine of 50cc or less (depending on jurisdiction) and a motorcycle has an engine of 200cc+. They are definitionally mutually exclusive. Beyond definitions, they each do things the others cannot. A moped cannot drive at certain speeds, and a motorcycles won't match the fuel efficiency of mopeds. A moped is lacking something it needs to be a motorcycle (a specific engine) and vice versa. The Switch lacks nothing required of a handheld or a home console. 

By the strictest of definitions no, it isn't a handheld. It's a hybrid.

But I look at it like this.

If you knew nothing of the two, and I took the Switch (joy cons attached) and the PS5, plopped them down on a table and asked you to blindly identify which one was the handheld and which one was the home console, do you think you would have have said Switch? Heck no! You'd have instantly said Switch was the handheld and the PS5 was the home console. And the reason for it would be totally logical, because that's what it is. It's a Nintendo handheld that can be played on a TV. 

But if that fails to convince you, then we'll just have to disagree and leave it at that, since I don't want to argue over something so petty. Doesn't matter in end what we define it as. It is whatever it is. That and we're annoying Curl lol

From a technical, architecture, engineering and scientific point of view Switch is a portable because it has most similarity with previous portable devices.

From a marketing point of view it's a hybrid. As products are defined by how they are sold, not how they are made. Whether "hybrid" means "both" or "neither" it really comes down to how you perceive it. I perceive it as neither handheld, nor a home console, but something else entirely because it changed the way I interacted with gaming devices in a deeper level for me

I guess people wants to see Switch badly as home console because the concept of familiarity, we like to associate things the other previous already know things, that way it's easier to understand and classify the new thing. It's easier to brain classify "Switch is both handheld and home console, because it's a hybrid" then "As Switch has aspects of both along with new features, it's probably neither, but something else"

That does fail to convince me, because it's a rigged test. First off, you're presenting the Switch as a portable. If I showed it to people docked, on a TV, with Joycon's detached with the wrist bands, they may think differently. Second, it's relying on people who don't know what it actually does who would be the worst to make that call. Third, it's circular, as you're starting with the assumption that one of the two objects is not a home console, which is what you're trying to prove.

It's the same as presenting someone with no specific knowledge about dolphins and coyotes a dolphin and coyote video of each in their wild setting and asking them to identify which is the mammal and which is a fish. They would almost certainly tell you the dolphin is a fish.

Or, more to the point, if I showed someone whose never seen either before a docked Switch and a Vita and asked them to pick which one is the portable and which one is the home console what would they say?

Please guys. This issue isn't the subject of this thread and is just beating a dead horse at this stage. It's been over 5 years, nobody is changing their mind at this point.

Can we please refocus on the topic at hand?

I miss 3D :(