2016 will be the year of the Super Tablets

If the latest trends in upcoming multi-touch tech gear are of any indication of things to come, consumer electronics stores in 2016 will need to start reinforcing their shelves: the Super Tablets are coming.

Since the announcement of the 12.9 inch Apple iPad Pro, rumors have been circulating about Samsung’s own stab at a supersized tablet experience. Last week, we have finally gotten word of the new tablet, the Samsung Galaxy View, featuring a monstrous 18.4 inches screen size, which places this device in a category of its own, which we could only describe as “portable home theater”, if there ever were such thing.

Finally, according to a recent FCC filing, Samsung’s super-tablet has graduated from rumor to news, and the specs are actually quite respectable.

The Galaxy View features a 1080p display, with a total measurement of 17.5 inches by 10.7 inches, with rear stereo speakers, and LTE radio compatible with AT&T’s bands, with no information regarding other supported networks, which may or may not include Verizon and company.

Considering the sheer size of the tablet, Samsung has included a 5,700mAh battery, although this information is susceptible to changes until any official announcement is made by Samsung.

Here is why Samsung’s Galaxy View makes sense:

In spite of what one would think, Samsung is in no way interested in building a competitor of the Apple iPad Pro. The two tablets share very little in common, aside from being bigger than any other consumer tablet available on the market which doesn’t require a crane to move around the house, thus excluding the Microsoft Surface Hub.

If a similar tablet were made by any number of other manufacturers, there would be no way we could take this news seriously, due to the mere fact that few companies in the world are capable of creating consumer electronics with internal components manufactured and designed by the same company.

Samsung has also a long history of pioneering products early on, with trend-setting consumer electronics such as the Galaxy Gear, which, while nowhere near as popular as the Apple Watch, was exceptionally well received since its first iteration.

According to what we know so far, the Samsung Galaxy View is not a business product, and it doesn’t have to be. As we mentioned earlier, the View is a product that best fits the category of “portable home theater”, and that is exactly what this device is meant for.

By this token, we can expect the View to solve a problem common to connected technology applied to home entertainment, by starting a trend that is set to provide an alternative to streaming HDMI dongles, in settings where large TV screens are not available.

The sheer size of the Galaxy View may be perhaps excessive as a tablet, however, we are prepared to bet that the only way possible for these tablets to gain traction is not by shrinking... but rather by growing, to a size that is enough to satisfy home theater requirements.

While there is no way of knowing yet if this is Samsung’s intent, it’s very possible that future oversized tablets could evolve into something much different, and disrupt the way we enjoy home entertainment, with the addition of unusual accessories, like IR, voice or gesture-based controllers.

This of course would eliminate a lot of the pressure associated with building a tablet that has to work as a PC alternative, a-la Microsoft Surface Book, or Apple iPad Pro, which is an entirely different category currently trend-set by Apple and Microsoft, among some of the major manufacturers.