What to do with an 18in tablet?

There really isn't much to get excited about with laptops and tablets any more It seems most laptops and Ultrabooks are cut from the same cloth, with small changes differentiating a rather large set of choices. Whether it's touchscreen or not seems to be the "made for 2013" tickbox, In the tablet space, you have the market-dominating iPad family, with Android devices going along for the ride. Then there are Windows 8 tablets from a variety of manufacturers, with the Microsoft Surface being the elephant in the room.

So, you can imagine my delight at hearing the news that some vendors are launching larger devices: some 12in, a few even bigger, When I saw Dell had launched the 18in XPS 18, I went straight to the website and placed an order for next-day delivery.

This thing is huge. An 18in tablet screen is, in some ways, a thing of beauty. If you sit it in the supplied desktop stand, you can see it from the other side of the kitchen, which I guess is where it will primarily be used. Do you want to keep an eye on Twitter while kneading bread? Not a problem. Want to watch the football while cleaning the oven? Again, that isn't an issue.

It sits reasonably well on your lap, too, and doesn't suffer from the falling-down-the-gap-in-the-middle effect that plagues smaller tablets; it will rest just fine across both your knees. It would be a joy to use on a plane, assuming you have enough distance between you and the seat in front, and an adequately sized tray - think more business class than economy. Bear in mind that it's only slightly smaller than the 20in Sony Trinitron TV my parents bought in the 1970s, which was deemed suitable for family viewing (in colour, no less).

So, apart from watching TV and keeping an eye on Twitter across the room, to what other uses can you put an 18in tablet? Well, to be honest, I had hoped there would be a real revolution of thinking. For example, wouldn't it be great if you could pick up a streaming video feed and drop it onto your tablet, then change rooms and push it back to the big TV? Or if you could run lots of applets at the same time, keeping an eye on everything from Twitter to the baby cam?

Yes, all that would be nice. But it's here that cold, hard reality hits. Lest we forget, the XPS 18 employs Windows 8, so it suffers from all the problems relating to that OS. Yes, I can snap two Metro apps onto the screen - but only two. On a screen of this size, I want eight. Even if I could run that number of apps, I'd soon run into the resolution limit of the screen: at only 1920 x 1080, the display looks pixellated even from a few feet away. I'm not convinced it would work well with eight information windows open at once.

Next, there's the weight, It's made from concrete, or at least that's what it feels like. You can forget holding the XPS 18 in one hand - that simply isn't going to work. Also, the width makes it awkward to thumb-type on the keyboard. My hands aren't small, but there's a huge gap in the middle, even with both hands outstretched. Sitting the device on your lap or on a table are the only options. So, we're back to kitchen mode, since it really doesn't offer anything useful outside this space,

It's all a little disappointing. You can't simply scale up a product without giving it specific capabilities that take advantage of the increased size. Otherwise, you end up with something as pig-ugly as the oversized Mini Countryman, for example, which looks like a Mini that's been over-inflated by an air line at a garage.
And then it dawned on me. I was carrying the XPS 18 across the room by holding it on either side, as I would a medium-sized tray topped with a dinner plate and a glass, Dinner would obscure some of the screen, of course, but would that really matter? Clearly, this is an area Dell needs to investigate further for the XPS 18 Mark 2.

 It already has decent rubberised feet, which prevent it from sliding around; with a little more research in this direction, its transformation into a useful device would be complete.
Except for one thing, something so blindingly obvious when you think about it that I can't believe Dell missed it: the XPS 18 needs cute little handles on each side to make it easier to carry. Then you could have advertising beneath your beef stroganoff as well as on the television screen. Perfect.

Posted By Lotfi Ben Taleb

Tunisian Blogger obsessed with technology news and innovations around the world. contact me

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