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After looking at TV Mode and Tabletop Mode, we arrive at the third and ultimate way to play the Nintendo Switch — Handheld Mode.

Last week, when talking about HD Rumble, I talked about how it reminded me of the VR conundrum — being the sort of thing you only really get having experienced it, how do you convince others it's worth a look? The ability for the Nintendo Switch to transform from docked and displaying on the TV and into its handheld display mode is another of those features. You can see it works, but the finger snapping Switch cognitively seems far-fetched until you see it in action.

I got to experience it first-hand when we went from playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the TV and direct to handheld in a few small moves — the moment you take the Switch out of the dock it flicks from TV to built-in screen. It's like a clever video transition, a piece of special effects, except it plays out live in your hands.

And the idea of having full-blown triple-A games in a handheld is more wizardry. Breath of the Wild looks fantastic on the 6.2 inch — all screens are measured in inches these days, but it's 16 centimetres — screen. It's a multi-touch capable screen, features a 3.5mm audio jack as well as speakers, and it weighs around 295 grams. A little more than twice the weight of an iPhone 7, but it's keeping the 3.5mm audio jack.

With the Joy-Con Controllers clipped to the sides of the screen, it's actually heavily reminiscent of playing the Wii U. I spent dozens of hours playing Xenoblade Chronicles X on the tablet screen of the Wii U, watching TV at the same time, and it was a surprisingly comfortable way to play. Breath of the Wild, from my experience with it, is more actively engaging than XCX was but Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is on its way before the year ends.

Handheld mode seems to me more likely to replace time spent on your daily commute reading or watching shows - provided you're on a form of transport where you can keep both hands-free, of course. The days of playing handheld only games while away from your home are quickly disappearing — 2-in-1 Tablet/PC combos and NVidia's Shield (which uses similar technology to the Switch) have been dragging PC gaming away from the desktop for a little while now, but the Switch packages the concept in a way which is effortless to understand. There's no need to stream higher-powered games from a PC over wifi, no need to acquire extra peripherals to play games properly — it's a complete package.

We split the Switch into three different parts to get to the bottom of what makes each component special, but it's the console's ability to flip between each part at will that makes it so intriguing. It's that ability to Switch from TV mode to a tabletop platform for multiplayer Street Fighter on-the-go and then again into Handheld mode to selfishly play Zelda away from home. It's more than the console and the controllers — it transforms how you think about playing games.