Yenting Chen, Taipei; Joy Wan

 

Panel sizes are becoming diverse as Samsung Electronics released its 8.9-inch Galaxy Tab at the end of September, 2011. Sources in the industry said Samsung's move is aimed at differentiating its products from the rest in the market. Samsung is the second to release a 8.9-inch portable device following LG Electronics' (LG) G-Slate in early 2011.

But sources noted that it may be difficult for other portable device suppliers to follow suit as both LG and Samsung are panel makers and are self-sufficient in terms of panel supply.

Vendors need to consider cost effectiveness for cutting panels into special sizes, and that is why most of them are making either 7- or 10.1-inch tablets, they said. Although the Apple iPad opts for the 9.7-inch panels, the large demand of iPad has made it less difficult for touch panel and component makers to deal with the special size.

Also, extra cost brought by the custom-designed panels will eventually go down to consumers, sources said, so most vendors have not tried special sizes.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) had considered 8.9-inch tablets, but later chose 9.7-inch to run into a head-on competition with Apple, they said.

The 8.9-inch Galaxy Tab looks the same as its previous 10.1-inch version, but with a lighter weight of 465g and a battery capacity of 6000mAh. The 10.1-inch Galaxy Tab has a battery capacity of 6860mAh. Samsung's handheld devices have screen sizes of 5, 7, 8.9, and 10.1 inches.