A tablet is often one of the best screens you have in your home, especially if you have a budget TV or an older model. We also explained that there are tons of large-screen tablets out there, which means you don’t need to sacrifice screen size to get a nice portable display for yourself. One of the best uses for a tablet is to watch content, whether it’s YouTube videos or a full-length movie. If this use case is your primary goal, then having the right sized screen is important.
In general, tablets tend to come in a few key sizes ranging from 11 inches all the way up to Samsung’s giant 14.6-inch Tab Ultra range. There are smaller-screen tablets, especially the compatible iPad mini, but with a screen not much bigger than your phone’s, these devices are really meant for watching movies second, then reading and taking notes first. Keeping the standard range in mind, how do you choose your tablet cinema machine? Let’s look at some factors to help you make this decision.
Movie aspect ratios and good screen size
The advertised screen size for a tablet doesn’t exactly give a complete idea of the best display for movies. In general, films today follow a fairly wide aspect ratio, often using a 16:9 or 1.85:1 widescreen aspect ratio. This means that an ideal tablet screen for watching movies is quite large. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S series, for example, uses a 16:10 aspect ratio, which matches the most standard movie format quite closely. Compare this with the 4:3 ratio used by Apple’s iPad and iPad Air lines. This squarer aspect ratio allows for better windowing and a more versatile experience for stacking windows or apps in other use cases, but widescreen movies will appear smaller because the extra vertical space will have black bars on either side.
With this in mind, the size and shape of your screen are important to consider when selecting. While the base 11-inch Galaxy Tab S feels solid for watching movies, the 11-inch iPad equivalent can feel cramped. In general, bigger is probably better, but for iPads, it’s probably best to go with the larger iPad Pro to maximize widescreen real estate.
A final consideration regarding screen size is how it affects the weight of the device. If you have a large screen, such as the Galaxy Tab S Ultra model, it will look huge and beautiful, but may feel heavy in your hands during long movie watching sessions. So be sure to think about what would feel comfortable if you want to hold your tablet during a movie.
