35$ Indian Tablet gets launch date (Jan 2011) and runs on Android OS

[Vehl]

The 35$ Tablet is set to be released on Jan 2011. The Initial 1 Million Units will go directly students and will not be on market. Afterward production will be both geared towards both market as well as Student needs, with estimates ranging between 30-60 Million units for Indian schoolchildren alone. The huge numbers definitely play a major part in bringing the per-unit cost of the product down.


The R&D for this product is fully subsidized by the Indian government, thus the R&D costs do not carry over into the student versions. The government might also further subsidize the price for students based on needs. The initial version would be a 7" screen version. Later versions would also offer a 5" as well as 9" variants.



Video Demo here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdGowVXNeiQ&feature=related


It runs the Android OS fairy smoothly and has a surprising amount of features.
Check out the Video for the demo. Its neither sleek nor fancy looking as its expensive counterparts, but it does look surprisingly good enough for a 35$ machine


some of the features include

2GB ram (upgradable to up to 32 GB but that option costs extra)
Resistive touch screen
Wifi
Mini USB Port
USB Port
SD card slot
SIM card slot
Video Out
HeadPhone Jack


some pros

# Runs Android fairly smoothly
# Plays videos/youtube (probably flash as well)
# Wifi works well
# Price!

a con
# Resistive touch screen as opposed to the Capacitive touch screen found on most modern tablets..but then again Capacitive touch screens are much more expensive and cater to a market this tablet is not intended to fill



PS: an interesting interview with the director of the product.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=term9FQsYdA&feature=player_embedded#!

He makes an interesting point

"throughout the world, the price of Chips, Ram, and other components are falling, yet the price of tablets are rising....this raises quite a lot of questions. Does this mean there is a lack of innovation?"

I guess what the good director did not mention is that the ever increasing profit margins might explain this discrepancy very well.



I welcome this effort to make available a cheap tablet pc for students!, in a region where most cannot afford an expensive laptop, this tablet pc would definitely work wonders.

[Recursion]

1. Looks like the Moblin GUI

Isn't that RedHat's baby? I didn't know they were part of this.

[Vehl]

2. Moblin is better looking, imho

From what i see on youtube, moblin has a much sleeker look than the one on this tablet.
But the loading screen on the tablet says Android..so i donno.

[Vehl]

3. double post.

[Recursion]

10. Just installed Fedora, for the hell of it

Moblin has no logout feature. Screw that. Back to Debian.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

5. Intel's baby, but Fedora is the father.

[Vehl]

4. lol someone unrecced this? :P

oh my :eyes:

[JVS]

7. Evidently they're concerned that underpaid Chinese Apple™ workers might get laid off.

;-)

[MannyGoldstein]

6. Astonishing, if they can do it

I have no idea of how they can hit $35. Seems to me that the parts alone would be at least double that (and I'm in the biz, sort of).

[Thav]

8. Maybe they're using the dotcom era business strategy

Lose a little money on each sale, but make up for it in volume of sales.

[Soylent Brice]

9. neato.

thanks for the info.