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I'm definitely not defending microsoft here, because it's not something I understand the reasoning of. For some reason, we decide to measure monitors/tvs/displays by their diagonal. I don't get it, but that's what happens. When someone says '15 in screen' they mean 'a screen with a 15 in diagonal'.

When microsoft says 'it has a bigger screen' it is a shortcut to saying 'the ipad has a 9.7 in screen, and we have a 10.1 in screen. therefore ours is bigger.' Given the context of talking about screens, this does make sense.

You can point out that 'oh, but the ipad has a bigger screen by area' and you are correct. But that doesn't change the fact that the number associated with screensize for every fricken screen on sale today is bigger on their product than it is for the ipad. That's not a lie.




I wouldn't be surprised if they can legally say "The Asus tablet has a 10.1" screen and the iPad has a 9.7" screen", but I'd strongly expect they need a "* based on diagonal measurement" footnote to get away with calling that display "bigger". But I'm not a lawyer.




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