Cheaptest tablet in the world - $35 Aakash tablet

Can you imagine that a tablet is going to released to market at $35 only (Rs.1750). It is true. The name of the tablet is Aakash. Research was going for last one year on releasing a tablet at low price, especially intended for students under the funding of government of India. Recently they have displayed a model, which can be distributed at a price of $35 for students and $70 for other users.

Specifications of Aakash tablet

• Processor -366 MHz
• OS – Android 2.2(Froyo)
• RAM -256 MB RAM
• ROM –2GB Micro SD card expandable up to 32GB
• IO ports-Supports usual USB drives(pen drives)
• Screen size – 7” resistive
• Connectivity- Wi-Fi, GPRS(using built in SIM card module)
• Battery – 2100mAh
• Additional Features- Built in Graphics processor and video accelerator chips, Supports different video formats, office document formats, picture formats etc. It also supports 3G connectivity using USB dongle

Pros of Aakash tablet

From the specifications you can understand that most of the features that you are expecting from a tablet are available in this tablet also. The main plus point in this tablet is its low price, as you can never find a tablet with similar features anywhere at this cost. For common purposes like watching small videos, browsing in internet, viewing pictures, preparing office documents etc, this tablet is enough. It is missing built in 3G SIM support. It will not be much problem in country like India as still majority of smartphone users are using GPRS plans only. As they are available at very cheap prices compared to 3G data plans. Also 3G facility is yet to come in rural areas. There the only data access method is through GPRS or Edge only Actually Government released this tablet at such a price intending students. But due to the interest of other people, it is going to be released in commercial version also. After the starting of advanced booking, within a fortnight, 0.5 million bookings have done. Surely it indicates the popularity that this tablet has achieved. A company named Datawind is the authorized seller of this tablet.

Cons of Aakash tablet

Such a reduction in price can come only at the sacrifice of some features. This tablet lacks any camera. Also the processor of 366MHz is very less powerful as even mobile phones have 600MHz this time. But the presence of additional video and graphics processing chip makes video playback easier. Also as the battery is not of large capacity, maximum battery backup is only 4 hours. Also power of Android is in the large number of apps available in android market. but in this device there is no Android market in student version. Only a getjar app is provided for this purpose. But it is the case with student edition. Commercial edition will be released with Android market. Test users fo this tablet have released their initial feedback. According to them the tablet hangs intermittently (may be due to the low powered CPU). Also there is overheating problem on continuous usage for half an hour. Also the resistive touch screen is not that responsive (You will know the difference, if you ever used resistive touch screen devices and capacitive touch screen devices.). Another one that you can notice in Aakash tablet is the cheap build quality of the tablet outer material. As this tablet is intended mainly in decreasing the price and making available to common users, you can neglect it.

Aakash 2 tablet expected features

If you find that the features of this tablet is not enough, just wait for 3 or 4 months. Aakash 2 tablet is going to released with additional features. Actually this new versions will come resolving all problems in Aakash 1(current version) tablet. In the new version of Aakash tablet there will be 800MHz processor making the tablet able to run larger apps. RAM is expected to increase to 1GB giving very nice multitasking features. So opening many apps simultaneously will not be a problem. Also a small video call camera at the front also you can expect as it will make video calling from the tablet easy. And the good news about this new version of this tablet is that this will also be released around the same price.

How can you get Aakash tablet?

After reading about Aakash tablet everybody is asking the same question only. This tablet will be released in 2011 Dec according to first plans. But due to the delay in some R&D work, this has been postponed to 2012 Jan. If you are a Graduate student, you can get this tablet at your college, by 2012 Feb for $35 (Rs.1750). Otherwise you can get the commercial version from the market. As still R&D work is going on this tablet, you can expect it to come to market rectifying the initial disadvantages of this tablet. In that case this tablet will just rock markets.