The official Chrome developer blog announced Chrome enables desktop mode on premium tablets by default / Chrome for Developers an important change for Android tablet users. Now tablets with screens from 10 inches and at least 8 GB of RAM will be able to open all sites in the version for computers, not mobile devices. It is noted that the restriction on displays was introduced so that sites with a large number of elements do not look squeezed or cluttered on small screens.
This change will allow Android tablets to compete better with the iPad. Apple has long added the option to download desktop versions of sites by default to iPadOS: tablets are simply assigned the same identifier as Mac computers so that sites immediately download the correct version. Google now does the same: in Chrome, suitable tablets receive an identifier of the form X11; Linux x86_64, while models that do not meet the minimum requirements will continue to be labeled as Linux; Android 10; K.
If users don't like the changes, they can switch to the mobile version of the site manually or set exceptions in the settings so that individual resources always open in the mobile version. You can also always disable the "Request desktop version" option — then mobile sites will open by default.
