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Friday, October 7, 2011

Aakash - the wonder tablet


On Wednesday, cheapest tablet was launched in India. It will be sold to Indian students at the subsidized price of $35 (Rs 1750) and later in shops for general public for $60 (Rs. 3000). Most of people living in India are poor and not able to buy products such as Apple’s iPad, Tabs etc.

This device was earlier advertised as Sakshat, but then renamed to Aakash. Human Resources Development Minister Mr. Kapil Sibal unveiled Aakash in the capital recently. 500 tabs were distributed for free to students who were invited to attend the event.

Aakash, Cheapest Tablet PC in India aakash

“The rich have access to the digital world, the poor and ordinary have been excluded. Aakash will end that digital divide,” Telecoms and Education Minister Kapil Sibal said.

Aakash is developed by  Datawind, a Canada-based company founded by two Indians named Suneet and Raja Tulli. But these devices will be made and sold in India by Quad, a company based in Andhra Pradesh.

Aakash is Hindi word which means “sky”. Indian govt is buying its first units from a British company which is assembling these devices in India. 100,000 units will be given for free to students.

This device will have GPRS and wi-fi support to enable internet for users. In India only 8 percent of population have access to Internet. This device is aimed for university students for eLearning.

This device has inbuilt 2 GB memory and comes with 2 GB external card which is expandable up to 32 GB.

We have to use external dongle for 3G. It has 2 usb port to connect external devices. we can also connect keyboard to it.

This device may look good to students who have never used any tablet in their life. But it is very slow compared to other devices available in market. This device has only 256 MB ram to run android which is just fine to run most of apps. It used resistive touch instead of full touch screen.

So, if you just look at the price tag offer by govt, this device seems ok. But we have used more powerful devices so these tablets will make us feel slow.
By the way, this may be cheapest Indian tablet but there are lot cheaper tablet available that are made in China.