My tablet uses IMAP, desktop Office 2013 uses POP3.
That works fine. I don't need all my desktop .pst folders and stuff to synchronize with my tablet, which I believe will happen when I were to use IMAP within Outlook 2013 as well...(?)
My Outlook 2013 .pst file is close to 5GB with RSS feeds, subfolders and stuff. I ocassionally use my tablet for a few mails.
The current setup works fine.
If you use IMAP, correct, read, sent, and deleted messages would sync between the two computers.
In Outlook 2013 I manually set up each account (pop/smtp server, advanced settings, setting ports, TLS/SSL, etc)
Probably the retail version of Outlook 2016 can be set up the same way (POP3).
I am not sure how Outlook (Office 365 Home) is being set up, I haven't found a step by step guideline. After spending hours and diverted to other 365 products or to 2016, I gave up.
By default Outlook 2013 and 2016 auto account setup will generally use imap if its supported by the server. You need to set it up manually if you want to use pop3.
Keep in mind that there is NO difference in Office 2013, Office 2016, or 'office 365' versions of desktop Outlook. It's just a different name for the same software. There are feature improvements from 2013 to 2016 (and between home and business) and the EULA is different between retail, home, and business but this will not affect the accounts. (This applies to Outlook 2010 and 2007 too - they are mostly identical to the newer versions, save for eye-candy and some new and improved features. The underlying code is the same.)
Office 2013/2016 Subscription = Office 365 software = Office 2013/2016 Retail. The big difference: Subscriptions get feature updates, Retail does not. In comparing Home and Business/Enterprise suites, some business features, like Power BI and Policies are missing from the Home version.
Note: I found a nice short video on youtube titled: " Office 365 Outlook " (Jim Fox)
that shows Outlook 2013 web access. Maybe you wish to look at it.
Suppose that version is using IMAP.
"web access" is browser based access to Exchange mailboxes. It's now called Outlook on the web (because we can never have enough programs called Outlook.

) I would assume it's Exchange services, not IMAP, connection if he's referring to it as web access.
BTW, ForcePSTPath
it says: "Use the ForcePSTPath regedit to change the default *.pst or Outlook 2013/2016 IMAP and EAS *.ost path. This key works for for POP3, IMAP... etc"
Q1: is it not for IMAP only then?
No, it's not limited to IMAP. It's for any account that is not "Microsoft Exchange " (which is not the same a Exchange ActiveSync). Both IMAP and Outlook connector (used to connect to Outlook.com/hotmail) used pst files at one time. Even after the file format changed, they did not change the underlying code that referenced this key.
Q2: POP3, manual setup, users can select the .pst file themselves
(see "Moving Outlook to a new Windows computer", step 5, in my earlier mail).
Even though there is registry patch, users still may not be able to select a .pst file for each account they created..?
You should always be able to select a pst file with pop3 accounts - you need to do it from the manual setup screen, which can be after auto setup created the account.