I had to hold up a piece of letter sized paper to my iPad to verify this. Funny, I think of the iPad as more like 80% of the size of a piece of paper, but in actuality, you're right: it's more like 50%.
doh, I meant a steno pad ~~ ipad. They measure 6" x 9" - pythagorean says this is about a 10.8" screen. Ipad screen size is 9.7".