Google Chrome may soon default to desktop mode on large Android tablets

Google Chrome is experimenting with a new feature that will automatically open webpages in desktop mode on Android tablets that have a large enough display. The feature will essentially eliminate the need to manually check the “Desktop site” option in the browser and offer users a more streamlined experience overall.

We recently spotted information about this upcoming feature in the Chromium Gerrit, which sheds some light on its capabilities. As per the description, the feature will allow Google Chrome to automatically request the desktop version of a website when it detects that the device has a large enough display. While we aren’t sure of the size threshold at the moment, we believe that the feature will most likely be based on the resolution/DPI of the tablet. The description states:

“This CL will set up the experiment for requesting desktop site for tablets.
The experiment will have two comparable groups, enabled and control.
Both groups need to set header “X-Eligible-Tablet” depends on the screen size, but only enabled group will actually request the desktop site base on the screen size.
So enabled group will receive {“RequestDesktopSiteForTablets”, {“screen_width_dp”, ***}, {“enabled”, true}}
And control group will receive {“RequestDesktopSiteForTablets”, {“screen_width_dp”, ***}, {“enabled”, false}}”

It’s worth noting that the new feature is in its early stages of development, and we aren’t sure whether it will make its way to a stable Google Chrome release or not. But if/when it does, it will certainly be a great addition for those who own large tablets like the Samsung Galaxy Tab S7. We’ll update this post as soon as this feature is available in Chrome on the Canary channel.

Along with this new default desktop mode feature, Google Chrome is also experimenting with tab widths in the new tab scrolling feature. We learned about this change earlier this month, and it’s currently available on Chrome 90 on the Canary channel. The feature gives users the option to customize tab width in the browser, with four size variants to choose from — pinned tab width, medium width, large width, or no shrinking. Google will likely pick one of these size variants based on user feedback, but it’s possible that the company may provide multiple options when the feature becomes available in a stable build.

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