The world’s cheapest tablet has gone cheaper, for Indian students at-least. According to NYTimes India Ink, the company manufacturing the Aakash-2 for the Indian Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) will be making them available to the students of 20,000 colleges and 416 Universities for a price of Rs. 1132 (or $21 approx.) Datawind has also clarified that it will be retailing the Aakash-2 tablets to the general public, under its own brand, Ubislate for Rs 3,499 and Rs 4,299, which is $62 and $77 respectively.
Aakash-2 Specifications
Aakash-2 boasts a much better hardware specifications (on paper at-least) in comparison to its predecessor, which failed miserably to impress anyone. The failure to provide a decent usable product almost resulted in scrapping of this ambitious project. It has hence survived and has improved considerably
7-inch capacitive display 800MHz Cortex A8 processor 4GB of internal storage 256MB RAM SD memory card slot Wi-Fi only model & Wi-Fi + SIM card slot model Android 2.3 Gingerbread 3200mAh battery
It weighs less than a pound and the back is made up of rubberized plastic, which keeps the device steady in your hand. It also comes with one USB port & a headphone jack. Datawind will be delivering 100,000 tablets in the next 6 months to Indian Institute of Technology (I.I.T.) Bombay, which is spearheading the project, which will then distribute the tablets to colleges and Universities across India. In addition to the apps available on Android market, Aakash-2 will have several apps that have been developed for students studying computer languages like C, C++, Python and Scilab, an open-source version of MATLAB, which are all used to create computer programs. Exclusive apps like Proximity, Clicker & Robot Control should greatly enhance the experience on this low-cost device.
