Commercial Times has reported that Apple may be releasing a netbook-size tablet laptop this October. The price seems to be in the area of $800. Another Chinese paper, China Times says the netbook tablet will again change how we think of a product line with the introduction of a 9.7-inch screen. Foxconn, Wintek and Dynapack are said to be the manufacturers of the Apple tablet.

The price range seems very Apple and I love the rumor on the screen size. The 9.7 inches may have in store for us more than just a novel dimension for an ultaportable screen. Apple may in fact use it to implement something totally new in portable computing. I don’t think it will be a game changer for netbook screen size. It’s just a .4-inch difference after all from the  10.1-inch screen of many netbook models. But the new screen may pose problem on the hardware size. Screen sizes also affect the siize of the keyboards in netbooks. Will the 9.7-inch screen give us a keyboard that is comfortable to use? More importantly, will Apple provide a keyboard at all. Based on user experience on the full-touch iPhone, a full touchscreen tablet may be heading for disaster and I don’t think the brain trust at Apple will risk it. So what do you think?