The Case For 7-Inch Tablets

By Aaron Ting

Thousands of readers descended upon our site when I stood up to defend the new Nook Color from Barnes & Noble. The comments were fairly divided between those who saw the merits of the new seven-inch touchscreen Nook, and those who sought to see it ripped from the annals of gadget history. Having played with the Nook Color for two weeks, I stand by these predictions:

• This first generation of the Nook Color will sell fairly well this Christmas because it's a high-quality product that currently has very few competitors at that form factor and price point.
• Nook will fail in the long-term if Barnes & Noble doesn't get Android Market apps onto these devices.
• Seven inch screens are definitely a viable and very lucrative form factor for tablets.

The last of these points is critical; I've been reading a lot of criticism from bloggers and commenters of other [lesser] sites about why a seven-inch tablet doesn't make sense. Even Apple's Steve Jobs has spoken out against the seven-inch screen, saying a seven-inch iPad would have to come with sandpaper so users could file down their fingers to use the smaller touchscreen. I would almost believe that argument if Apple wasn't building their even smaller 3.5" touchscreen into every iPhone. Let's be clear: every company investing in a touch-based operating system has already made sure that their multitouch interface can be scaled to a variety of form factors and screen sizes - it doesn't matter if you're Apple, Google, Microsoft, or HP-Palm. It's never been 'impossible' to put these touch interfaces on seven-inch displays, just as it wasn't impossible for Apple to put the iPhone's interface on the ten-inch iPad. 

If we made our customers use something smaller than an iPad, they'd have to grind their fingers with this disc sander...

...And that's just never been how we've done things at Apple. 

The key is utility - and this is something a lot of critics don't seem to understand. They ask why people would want a device with a footprint somewhere between a smartphone and an iPad - but the same kind of argument was made against the iPad when people held it up between a smartphone and a laptop. Popular form factors aren't divine measurements sent down from God; despite what they'd like you to believe, Apple didn't stumble upon some ancient mathematical secret when they decided the iPad should have a 9.7" screen. No one else was really making tablets for Apple to draw comparisons to, so they made up a number that they thought people would want, and it turned out that a lot of people did want something that size - even if they already owned a laptop. It's been just a year since the iPad hit store shelves, and millions of people are already persuaded that a 10" tablet has a legitimate place in their lives.

The difference between 7" and the iPad's 10"

Why should seven-inch tablets be any different? As long as it's useful for a lot of people, who cares if it's smaller than an iPad and bigger than a phone? I used an iPad for six months before deciding that, while an exceptional piece of tech, it wasn't the right form factor for my needs. It was too big and hefty to justify carrying with me in work/academic situations where I would already have to bring my more-capable laptop. As a dedicated reading device, it was far too big to comfortably grip while reading novels - Amazon hit the nail on the head when they selected the Kindle's smaller paperback size. This is where the seven-inch tablets and devices like the Nook Color just make sense. It's literally half the size of an iPad - about the same size as a classic Moleskin notebook. It's light enough to carry without making you feel like you're carrying an extra computer with you. It's comfortable to hold one-handed. Samsung's seven-inch Galaxy Tab has shown that nothing is preventing developers from putting quality calendar and email apps onto these seven-inch screens, and the basic Android web browser on the Nook Color was serviceable (if a little slow) for light web browsing. 

Yep, she gets the bigger picture because she's hotter.

Seven-inch tablets are happening, and they're going to be adopted by a lot of people. We have to get over this belief that there are 'laws' or 'holy numbers' determining what sizes our devices should be, and embrace whatever products would fit well with our needs. And whether Steve Jobs likes it or not, I have a hard time believing Apple is never going to make a smaller iPad - even if it requires stocking sandpaper at every Apple Store.