Tag Archives: Aakash

Aakash 2 Android tablet materializes, costs around $21 for Indian students

Posted by on November 12, 2012 No comments

Aakash 2 Android tablet materializes, costs around $ 35 for Indian students

It’s a few months late, but at least it’s hitting the streets for a few less dollars than expected. The Datawind-built Aakash 2 is finally a reality, launching in India on the nation’s National Education Day. It’s the second iteration of what amounts to a barebones, affordable Android slate, packing a 7-inch touch panel, 1GHz Cortex-A8 processor, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of Flash storage, Android 4.0.3, built-in WiFi and a front-facing VGA camera. Reportedly, this one’s going to be shipped to Indian students for Rs 1,130 (around $ 21), while outsiders will be able to snag one for closer to $ 80. Of course, the difference now is that these kinds of projects aren’t quite as novel. Indeed, Chinese megashops are hawking low-rate Android tablets right now for around the same amount, setting a new (low) bar when it comes to pricing on ho hum slates. Still, we’re all for getting technology into the hands of students, and you can learn a bit more about what those very students can expect from VentureBeat‘s hands-on just below.

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Aakash 2 Android tablet materializes, costs around $ 21 for Indian students originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 11 Nov 2012 23:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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India’s Low-Cost Aakash Tablet Pre-Orders Hit 1.4 Million

Posted by on January 3, 2012 No comments

indian-35-scamThe low-cost Indian tablet known as the Aakash, which we have followed in its career over the last year, is finally shipping. In late December they opened up orders for the first batch of 30,000 units, and brought so much traffic to their retail site that an Indian cyber regulation agency called to inform them they were possibly under attack. And in the last two weeks, they’ve racked up over 1.4 million pre-orders — iPad-scale numbers.

It’s being sold for Rs2500, which translates to just under $ 50. The government then subsidizes sales to students, bringing the cost down to $ 35. But while the government originally suggested a million devices would be on the ground before the end of 2011, the Indian manufacturer won’t be pushing out devices at a decent rate until this coming April, and at that point the Aakash may find itself an orphan device.
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$35 Aakash Android tablet gets the hands-on treatment

Posted by on October 28, 2011 No comments

While everyone was in a tizzy about Amazon’s $ 199 Kindle Fire price point, the Indian government was busily working to help bring out the $ 35 Aakash Android tablet. The tablet was developed with similarly good intentions as OLPC’s XO laptop before it — an attempt to get low-cost computing devices into the hands of students. One of the tablets landed in the VentureBeat offices this week. The site spent some hands-on time with the Froyo slate, and mostly liked what it saw, noting that seeming compromises made for price and a speedy release date ultimately benefit the whole of the device. The tablet will start hitting India next month, at the $ 35 government-subsidized pricepoint (actual retail price is a still mega-cheap $ 60).

$ 35 Aakash Android tablet gets the hands-on treatment originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Oct 2011 20:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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India’s $35 tablet is here, for real. Called Aakash, costs $60

Posted by on October 5, 2011 No comments
India’s much-hyped $ 35 tablet for students is a reality. But, like every other super-cheap education project, the price has jumped – though in this case only to Rs 2,999 ($ 60). It turns out that the Aakash is actually an Ubislate 7 from Datawind (makers of the Pocketsurfer). Beneath the 7-inch 800 x 480 resistive touchscreen is a 366MHz Connexant CPU, 256MB of RAM and 2GB of storage (expandable via microSD) running Froyo and the Getjar market on top. The battery life is rated for a rather short three hours, and much less if you want to play HD video. In addition to the 802.11 a/b/g WiFi chip, you also get a GPRS modem to stay connected in rural areas. We wish India’s HRD Minster Kapil Sibal’s pet project all the best and if you want to see the device held snugly inside a Rs 300 ($ 7) keyboard folio, check out the picture after the break.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading India’s $ 35 tablet is here, for real. Called Aakash, costs $ 60

India’s $ 35 tablet is here, for real. Called Aakash, costs $ 60 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Oct 2011 10:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Ubisurfer, IBN Live  |  sourceNDTV, Aakash  | Email this | Comments
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