You're saying this like I was arguing the Switch is not a console; the Switch is a hybrid which means it dual-serves as a handheld and a console. But there is no reality where the GameBoy, GameBoy Color, GameBoy Advance, Nintendo DS or even 3DS were competing in the same direct market segment as the Sega, Sony, Microsoft or even Nintendo home consoles of those generations, it's a bit silly to imply otherwise. Those handhelds needed specific resources for specific games usually developed with differing game design concepts and input methods compared to home consoles of those eras, and certain game genres either did not translate that well to those handhelds or were not present at all, in any serious capacity.
That's why I question throwing in those handhelds with consoles as if to imply they were competing over the exact same type of gamer. It's like trying to say the Wii was a direct competitor to 360 and PS3; it literally wasn't. The targeted audience was very different and most hardcore/core gamers picked up a Wii in addition to a 360 or PS3, which was much more common than them having a 360 and PS3 (at least for the first few years of that gen, especially in the US and UK).
By your notion of them deserving to be lumped in because they're competing for consumer time and budgets, again what acts as a major differentiation between something like a Switch and an iPhone? You're getting the same caliber of games (at least in terms of budgets and scale) on them both and in some cases iPhone games actually look and run better than similar types of games on the Switch. So for a device that admittedly isn't "specifically" designed to play games (which is misleading; it can be argued Nintendo's Switch is only specifically designed to play Nintendo's games given how many 3P games can't even run natively on the system without streaming), it can run a few of them better than the device that supposedly is?
Never mind that, again, the qualification of "designed to specifically play games" isn't a rational one these days because any modern gaming device that doesn't provide non-gaming features is going to look like a poor value proposition in the market and struggle to sell as well versus a device that can do more. Customers have higher baseline expectations now of what a gaming console should provide. We can discuss if this is something they naturally came to, or if it's something the platform holders trained the audience to expect over time, but that's what it is.
Arguably maybe the only way the idea of using "designed to specifically play video games" as a qualification can hold any water is if we're discussing it in relation to how companies market their devices. If that's the case, then yes I can agree those like Apple definitely don't sell/message their iPhones on their abilities as gaming devices. But should marketing angles really outweigh the true objective nature and capabilities of the device itself? No, not in my opinion at least.