And you thought Amazon was the low-price leader.
Right off the heels of the Amazon’s announcement of the Kindle Fire, the Indian Government unveiled a new tablet geared towards towards the “rural poor” and students, which with the help of grants, will carry a price tag of roughly Rs 1700, or $35.
Of course, this color tablet (dubbed Aakash by Montreal-based developer DataWind) won’t be winning the specs race, what with Android OS 2.2 and 256 MB of RAM in a 7-inch frame, but that’s not the point. It creates opportunities for people who otherwise would not have an opportunity to use such pieces of technology.
What really stands out is the method of dispersal. The device is being initially targeted towards college students. Select students are also given the privilege of showing and teaching people from more remote parts of the country how to use the device. This type of hands-on model should go a long way to spur adoption of the device.
The combination of price and potential grassroot adoption may very well make this tablet a sleeper hit. And it seems DataWind is rubbing their hands in glee at the prospects of a potential price war.
Additional features reportedly include expandable memory, USB slots and wi-fi capability. There is no information as to whether these tablets will be available outside India.
Will it be the mystical, famed iPad killer? Nope, but I am duty-bound to ask that.
Would you get one of these budget tablets?
James Cooper says
I’ve got a 10″ cheapo android 2.2 tablet (which cost 5x this one) and it ain’t the fastest thing on the planet! 🙂 In theory it’s a great idea, but I wonder how ‘useful’ this will be…
Also the same Indian Government Ministry ‘promised’ a $10 laptop a couple of years ago and we’re still waiting for that to come into existence!
Don’t mean to be down on this, but I’ll really believe when I see it…
I’m really interested to see in what’s gonna happen with the ‘Raspberry Pi’ project: http://www.raspberrypi.org/ they’re meant to be going on sale next month!
Joanna says
I would buy one. At the price you don’t have to get much use out of it to make it worth the money.