I'd say more than half the time, they just mean desktop/tablet/phone, that they don't care if your "desktop" is actually a laptop? It runs the "desktop" version of sites by default (thankfully); I couldn't imagine only having a mobile OS and nothing else. I'd go crazy.
I usually don't accept surveys that require a phone, unless they pay really well or I'm super bored.
The dumbest are the ones from Quick Thoughts that ask you to be on a desktop site, even though Quick Thoughts could filter those surveys out and not give them to you because it's literally a mobile-only survey app (one of only a couple I bother with, because they pay well enough - but it's still super dumb when that happens. I like how much it pays, but I hate how buggy it is. >.>)