After a huge success of the world’s cheapest car manufactured by India, the country is all set to step into the tech-world with the same strategy of offering good quality product at the best possible price.
After a wait of about one year since a prototype was shown to the reporters, the Indian officials have finally launched the world’s cheapest tablet i.e. Aakash Tablet (also known as Akash Tab or $35 Tablet) is available at a price of just $60 (Rs 3000) in retail stores and probably much cheaper for students.
The commercial version of Aakash Tablet is Ubislatewhich will be available from November with a few more features than the Government’s version. The makers of Akash Tab are IIT Rajasthan in partnership with DataWind, a leading manufacturer of wireless web access products and services which is based in Montreal and is owned by Suneet Singh Tuli who is a Canadian of Indian descent.
Features and Specifications of Aakash Tablet Display-
Aakash Tablet has a 7 inch resistive touch screen with 800 x 480 pixel resolution.
Operating System- Akash Tab runs Android 2.2 (Froyo).
Processor- It has got a single core 366 MHz processor plus a HD video co-processor, 256 MB RAM and 2GB internal flaash memory. Supported Multimedia
Formats- Aakash Tablet supports Image formats like .png, .jpg, .gif, .bmp. Supported Video Formats include MPEG2, MPEG4, AVI and FLV
. The Tablet also supports audio formats such as MP3, AAC, AC3, WAV and WMA.
External Connectors- Aakash Tablet supports Mini and Full USB, has got two SD card slots (memory expandable up-to 32GB), a SIM card slot, Video Out, a 3.5 mm headphone jack support and HDMI port.
Internet Connectivity- Aakash is a Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g enabled Tablet with a Web Browser having Standards Compliance, xHTML 1.1 compliant, JavaScript 1.8 compliant and safety compliance. It also offers separate software for online YouTube videos.
App Store- Akash Tab supports more than 150000 apps to keep you entertained throughout the day.
Battery- The 50 gram Tablet has a 2100mAh battery with a standby time of 3-4 hours.
Supported Document Formats- The supported document formats include DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX, XLS, XLSX, ODT and ODP. The Tablet has also got PDF Viewer and Text Editor. Aakash in Hindi Language means ‘Sky’ and probably the device is ready to reach the same height. The main target of this tablet is students who always admired Tablets but had to murder their feelings due to lack of money. Aakash has all the basic features which are frequently used by everyone and can be easily bought by the students just by saving their pocket money for a few days.
Though it is disappointing that the Tablet does not have a camera and will not have access to Android Market, we cannot expect so much at such a price. Overall the Tablet is a very good deal for everyone.