India is already home to the world's cheapest car, the £1,298 Tata Motors Nano, and now it's home to the world's cheapest tablet too. Made by DataWind, a British company also responsible for the PocketSurfer 2, the Aakash ("sky" in Hindi) will sell for just £22 to students, or £39 to regular citizens. Student discount, eh?
Reuters reports that the tablet, launched today, aims to end the digital divide. It's not going to challenge the iPad 2 for performance, but it will bring tablet computers into the hands of people who would never usually be able to afford such sophisticated technology.
Aakash is about the size of a paperback, takes SD cards, and features a touchscreen. It also comes complete with video conferencing, two USB ports and a three-hour battery life. The touchscreen is resistive rather than capacitive, so gesture controls won't work, and it packs Wi-Fi too. Future versions will have mobile connections for use in more rural areas.
The tablet runs Android 2.2 and packs a 600MHz processor, so it's not likely to blow you away with its speed, but at this price, who's complaining?
An initial run of 100,000 will be given free to students, and then it'll go on sale for about £39 for those not lucky enough to have the student discount.
DataWind tested the tablet by running video in 48C to mimic the sweltering heat of an Indian summer. The device was in development for two years and is aimed at the vast majority of India's 1.2 billion people for whom the iPad 2 is too expensive -- as well as university students looking to take advantage of government-sponsored digital book distribution.
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Comments 11
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anonymous 5 October, 2011 21:20
Hello Joe Svetlik,
Who said, it will go into some of the worlds poorest people, we are not any more ,you UK people are poorer than us now ,please ask you banks to beg other countries and you also said It's aimed at the vast majority of India's 1.2 billion population for whom the iPad 2 is out of their price range, how stupid you are, So many people had ipad 2 already and they are using a lot ,if you want we can donate one to you , please be respectful if you want to make news just mention news but don't mention about poor or rich.
anonymous 6 October, 2011 00:02
Where do I get one?
anonymous 6 October, 2011 00:14
Some facts. According to worldbank.org India's 2010 GDP was just over $1.7trillion whereas the UK's was $2.2trillion. GDP per capita in 2010: India $1,477, UK $36,100. Thanks for your attention.
anonymous 6 October, 2011 03:08
British made ?? dont kid yourself
youtube.com/watch?v=fWAVTLhgM5s
Looks like some one here took upon himself to fructify cameroon's pledge to put back "Great" in front of Britain quite literally .
some more facts for the gent quoting facts... BAE has laid off 3000 jobs last week , tata's and mittal's are your biggest employers . And the rate UKstan is going to the dogs .. you have to scour more ocean bottom to find looted treasures to payoff your national debt.
Ah and in PPP , india's GDP is twice that of Ukstan.
anonymous 6 October, 2011 10:25
They should stick to producing shit call centers instead
anonymous 6 October, 2011 18:39
Oh my god why everybody is adding their name with this tablet .some says it is canadian designed(http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/right-click/india-35-aakash-tablet-computer-designed-canada-194516502.html ) you says its british.
I want to say to all of you that it is Indian made.Made by Indian instute of technology rajsthan and indian institute of science with akash and government ministries. Instead of praising us why you adding your name.
anonymous 8 October, 2011 11:37
awsome piece of information, I had come to know about your website from my friend vinod, indore,i have read atleast seven posts of yours by now, and let me tell you, your blog gives the best and the most interesting information. This is just the kind of information that i had been looking for, i'm already your rss reader now and i would regularly watch out for the new posts, once again hats off to you! Thanks a ton once again, Regards, buy aakash tablet
anonymous 9 October, 2011 13:48
@anonymous 5 October, 2011 21:20.<br />
<br />
You **** where you eat. Bet you even have an app for that. Now thats rich lol<br />
<br />
and of cause you have Ipad's there. That's where the plastic goes to be recycled.
anonymous 10 October, 2011 11:50
The Indian goverment has done great work by spreading the internet to common man. Now the internet wouldn't be just for the rich people who can afford iPads and laptops.
anonymous 10 October, 2011 11:56
The £39 price tag is a reasonable price in India. The cost of living is less in India, hence they have less salaries. So the general public wouldn't be able to afford a £499 iPad 2. And by pricing the tablet for £39 most of the population will now have access to the tablet.
anonymous 21 November, 2011 14:23
Sounds like a good buy, but maybe too passe for the Western market. A £50 netbook would have been a better bet with a range of SD drives to accommodate varying needs. The SD instead of the conventional HDD would compensate for a lower priced CPU.
Perhaps the export model of the Aakash could tweaked to a more respectable speed, a sub £100 tablet would still be a fantastic buy.
I'm looking forward to more break-throughs from our Indian friends. They seem to have the right approach to their markets.