I like the idea of a really big tablet, but I think Viewsonic and I have different ideas of “really big.”
This week Viewsonic announced a 24-inch Android 4.1 tablet.
Here’s the problem with that. A 24-inch display measures roughly 12×20 inches. A tabloid newspaper page is typically about 11×17, and a broadsheet is about 18×24. So this 24-inch display is somewhere between those. Broadsheets exist primarily because newspapers were once taxed on the number of pages, so they got around the tax by making the pages larger. But newspaper designers are the first to admit the broadsheet is awkward. There’s no reason why a tablet needs to be large enough to display a broadsheet at anywhere near actual size.
To me, a really nice size for a tablet would be around 14 inches, which would allow you to display a standard letter-size or A4 size page at very close to its original size, while still being small enough to carry with you.
If I had my way, I’d have a 7-inch tablet to take with me most of the time, and a 14-inch tablet to read color magazines at home. For times I don’t want to carry something that large, I might use an e-reader, or perhaps a phone or media player instead.
But I understand why this device exists. Just build a tablet around a 24-inch 1080p display, and there you go. Those displays are cheap, and the profit margins on tablets are higher than the margins on televisions and monitors. So I don’t blame them for trying to find out if a market for 24-inch tablets exists.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.