If you thought the Amazon Kindle Fire was cheap, then you might want to head over to India, where the government will be introducing a $35 tablet for students.
The pilot program will bring this $35 tablet to students and it will eventually make its way into Indian stores for about $60. According to Reuters, the device will have a resistive touch screen and it will be rolled out slowly. The device will be called Aakash and the 7-inch screen will sport an 800 x 480 resolution. Look for this cheapo talbet to sport a 366MHz Connexant processor, Android 2.2 Froyo and 2GB of storage with an expandable microSD slot.
A pilot run of 100,000 units will be given to students for free, with the first 500 handed out at the launch to a mixed response. It supports video conferencing, has two USB ports and a three-hour battery life but some users said it was slow.
At that price, I’m not expecting much from it compared to something like the iPad but it’s interesting to see projects like this and the One-Laptop-Per-Child actually bear fruit. I’m actually a bigger believer in the tablet form factor than some of my colleagues and in particular, I believe younger people and students could really benefit from this type of computing. There are going to have to be some sacrifices made to the tablet at that price, so I’m wondering if just making a cheaper and higher-powered computer might be a better move.
[Via Reuters]