Big Tablets Could be a Big Trend

There continues to be a lot of talk around tablets which are larger than the traditional 10″ screen sizes. Rumors have it that Apple is working on a larger iPad and that Samsung is as well. While I don’t think it makes sense for Apple to make a larger tablets, and Samsung will experiment with every screen size, there may be a small role for larger tablets. Before I dive into this topic I want to level the discussion by establishing some definitions.

By tablet I mean a device that is designed as a pure slate. Something like the iPad for example. This can be used with our without a keyboard but is not dependent on one as a part of the design. Devices like convertibles and hybrids (which Intel now calls 2-1 computers) are not tablets in my opinion. Some of them may bleed over and include tablet features but they are not pure tablets.

There is no question in anyone’s mind that tablets are stealing sales from traditional PCs. IDC estimates that 2013 will end at a negative 9.7% for the year. In their press release from last a few months ago they stated”

The market as a whole is expected to decline through at least 2014, with only single-digit modest growth from 2015 onward, and never regain the peak volumes last seen in 2011.

Thanks to tablets, the market will never regain the peak volumes last seen in 2011. Very telling.

Yet even with this “PC is dead” narrative there are still many complexities. For example, if you have used a tablet for any length of time to do something considered more productive then you know these task are better experienced on larger screens. In fact in our consumer interviews they continually explain how when they go to edit a video, image, write a lengthy email or document, manage finances, etc., they choose to go to their PC to do these tasks. So in line with the theory that people love their tablets but also want a larger screen to do some tasks the question is whether or not there is a market for larger tablets.

The answer is yes. How big of a market there is for larger tablets is still the real question. In the short term I don’t believe it is that big but as certain technologies evolve the demand could get larger. But in the short term there is an interesting exception happening in the market.

The One Interesting Exception
I have been using the Dell XPS 18. Which is a tablet disguised as a desktop PC all-in-one. This product has been an interesting experiment for myself given my questions both around big tablets and my ideas on how the technology evolves to make the market interesting.

The first thing worth pointing out is that these larger “slates” actually have much more appeal from a collaborative standpoint than anything else. Things like working together, learning together, playing together, etc., all start to become more interesting when we can gather around a large touch screen and interact at the same time.

Imagine doctors being able to show patients digital images or other material and interact with it in real time. Or teachers using these larger screen tablets to collaborate on an assignment or teach something specific to a student. Even at home my family has been using the XPS 18 to play board games together. One of my daughters is taking piano lessons on it. But then as soon as you want to use it as a PC with a mouse and keyboard you place it on the dock and it is ready to go.

Large tablets have a place in certain verticals this I am sure. I can see tablets at 13-20-inches doing well in these spaces where the value of a larger touch screen for productive and collaborative use cases are more prevalent. For the mass market consumers, I’m not sure sure. For this market I can see tablets playing out differently when it comes to big screen use cases.

I mentioned that the technology may not be there yet and this is specifically where. I believe that consumers would find value in “docking” there existing 7″ or 10″ tablets into a large screen set up. And by large screen I mean something 20″ or greater. My view on this is the crux of why I am skeptical of Intel’s 2-1 category and personally feel it is a solution in search of a problem. It seems to me the more interesting solution for buyers interested in tablets is to get a pure slate tablet in the 7-10″ range and then also get a larger tablet like the XPS 18 and use them together as a solution. This way you get the benefits of a smaller more portable tablet for mobility and then the larger tablet/detachable desktop for more big screen productive desktop modes as well as more collaborative ones.

This is the advice I would give to hardware companies asking me about screen sizes. I would say for tablets focus on 7-10″ because those are the volume sellers. Then look to innovate around these larger screen detachable all-in-ones and create value in having the small tablet and larger tablet being used together as a solution.

In an ideal vision of the future, consumers will use their 7″ or 10″ tablets as their primary computing devices. Given that consumers primary needs are not that intense and mostly consumption over productivity, this device is well positioned for that. However, when they want to do something like edit a video, picture, write a long document, etc, they can “dock” their tablet to a larger screen and begin using the tablet + dock as a full desktop PC.

This vision has been shared before by many but for technical reasons has not made it to a useful reality. In the future if the technology enables this solution, it could literally mean the end of the notebook as we know it.

Whether big tablets would be an instant hit with certain verticals I’m not sure. But the common wisdom is that the larger the screen the more productive you can be.

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Ben Bajarin

Ben Bajarin is a Principal Analyst and the head of primary research at Creative Strategies, Inc - An industry analysis, market intelligence and research firm located in Silicon Valley. His primary focus is consumer technology and market trend research and he is responsible for studying over 30 countries. Full Bio

3 thoughts on “Big Tablets Could be a Big Trend”

  1. My personal bet is on the smartphone becoming the common device, with the “screens” becoming dumber I/O devices. Many sizes and I/O extras, but everything connects wirelessly.

    I see data as bipolar (dichotomic, rather). You want a lot of stuff in the cloud, but you also need a personal, near you, sensor, processing and I/O device that can be extremely real-time. User interface can’t afford any significant latency, not even 15 ms; some things MUST be processed locally, in real time, with ultra-low latency. The smartphone, especially Apple’s 64-bit reimagining thereof, is perfect for that. If your smartphone has an overabundance of compute power, as well as the most reliable yet mobile connectivity infrastructure, why do you need to duplicate that in every other device?

    So I disagree. The 7-10″ tablet may become the primary “screen”, but the natural progression would make the smartphone the primary computing device.

    I also see this fitting in to Steve Jobs’ “discovery” of how to handle the television problem. Wait long enough and Blu-Ray and all other media distribution forms become pure digital, with no discs, paper or cartridges. The television becomes…literally…just a screen with different size and audio capability attributes. Apple TV becomes a “hobby” product while the world catches up; meanwhile, it serves as the means of connecting the television screen to the network. It doesn’t need storage because its job is solely to get the “screen” on the network. It can be integrated with the screen in some variants, but that’s not the point. How do you accelerate this process? By pushing for thinness and lightness; it’s a 20″ screen, but you can hold it in one hand. By insisting on personal storage. By driving hard on wireless bandwidth and power efficiency. This all makes the perfect “screen”.Eventually the computing logic board is either removed to make the screen even thinner and lighter or, more likely, becomes so small and light, with such little power drain relative to the screen’s backlight and wireless radios, that it’s irrelevant whether it’s there or not.

    Big screens? inevitable. I just imagined Steve Jobs with a big catcher’s mitt on, watching the progression of the ‘puck’, squatting down and mouthing “come to poppa”.

  2. There are some more productivity tasks that would highly benefit from a larger “real” tablet around 12 or 13 inches: Drawing (with a precision digitizer stylus), photo editing (more screen real estate for portrait orientation than even on large landscape screens), video editing (no need to go to a PC here), music (having more room for controls would be highly appreciated by musicians), writing (with external keyboard). I could come up with more if I think longer.

    10 inches is actually slightly too small for many productive activities (I think there is a reason that our everyday paper sizes are larger than todays tablets), and therefor people are switching to PCs for that. I don’t see why this is an argument that there is no real need for slightly larger tablets (but they have to be lightweight to be appreciated, and this may be a technical problem at the moment). I don’t see a need for big, heavy tablets, though.

  3. There is talk (rumors) but no action yet.

    I think even iPad 9.7″ would have been struggling if not for the big weight loss, that makes it’s size a bit more acceptable. I really think the iPad air is the upper end of acceptable tablet size.

    Samsung is the one of those “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” company, so I expect they will try the big tablet market, but it will flop.

    From what I see, it really seems that even 10″ Android tablets aren’t selling very well. Google didn’t bother to upgrade the Nexus 10 after more than a year on the market, which I think is clear sign of mediocre sales. Anecdotally, I don’t know a single person with 10″ tablet, but lots have 7″ tablets.

    11″-13″ will be an even smaller niche.
    Really once you are looking at 11″+ screen you are in laptop/convertible territory. Android barely has usable software for 10″ screens let alone bigger.

    So if you want a screen bigger screen that 11″, you really are looking at windows laptops/convertibles. They aren’t really good hand held tablets and will be unwieldy in that application, but they may much better laptops and have some niche use as desktop tablet.

    I continue to see things as I have before:
    7″-8″: One handed tablet/readers – The bulk of the tablet market
    9″-10″: Two handed, but still handheld tablets. Some with awkward, too small, keyboard attachments
    11″-13″+: Desk tablet/convertibles, with more reasonable keyboards, but much less use as handheld tablets.

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