I don't think it's a useful distinction. I wouldn't describe my car as "really a vacuum cleaner", despite them both having an electric motor.

The form factor is the defining characteristic, because that informs how people use it. The CPU does not.

The iPad has a touchscreen, supports Apple Pencil, etc. but the observation that the iPad has been Apple's "budget" computing platform for a while is spot on. It is interesting that they have reformulated it into a Mac laptop (and also that A-series iPhone chips offer M1-class performance.)

Fortunately/unfortunately for Apple, the M1 MacBook Air from 2020 is still a great laptop.

Really an iPad running MacOS instead of iOS, with a built-in keyboard and touchpad, without a touch screen, multiple ports.

In other words, indistinguishable from a laptop by virtually everyone. I don't even know what difference you might be referring to.