Tablet manufacturers looking to compete against Apple’s iPad see small as their biggest opportunity. That’s the upshot of a Monday report indicating 7-inch tablets have more room on shelves as the Cupertino, Calif. company dismisses such tablets as unusable.
“Korea-based Samsung Electronics’ 7-inch Galaxy Tab and ViewSonic’s 7-inch ViewPad are both generating stronger sales than their 10.1-inch models,” a Taiwan-based industry publication writes. While the 10.1-inch versions offer greater expandability for such things as keyboards, sales are described as “not as stable” as the smaller 7-inch tablets.
However, the open space likely will mean “fierce competition” among players, such as Samsung, who’s 10.1-inch Galaxy Tab was not hailed as an immediate success. Likewise, Barnes and Noble’s Nook Color, powered by Android, will reportedly sell 3 million copies by the end of March.
Competition could heat up even more if Apple does introduce a device sized between a 3.5-inch iPod touch and a 9.7-inch iPad. The device could appear in the second half of 2011, according to some analysts.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
