People planning to purchase Aakash, the cheapest tablet, will still have to wait until the next year.
The commercial version of the tablet, Ubislate, was expected to hit the market in the last week of November, 2011 for Rs. 2,999. But the much-awaited tablet has been delayed for another two months. According to the Mobile Indian report, quoting a Data Wind spokesperson, the advanced version of Aakash tablet will be in the stores by the end of January. The delay, as the reports say, is due to the upgradation and certain unanticipated problems in manufacturing. DataWind is the UK-based company that is assembling Aakash.
The government had launched its dream project of the cheapest tablet, Aakash on October 5. The tablet has already received 3 lakh advanced bookings. DataWind has entered into a manufacturing agreement with companies in Noida and Cochin to meet the demand.
Aakash that has been rated as the world’s cheapest tablet, runs on Android 2.2 (Froyo) operating system. It has a 7-inch resistive touchscreen with a resolution of 800×480 and weighs 350 gram. Aakash includes a 356MB RAM, 32GB expandable memory, 3.5mm headphone jack and 2 USB ports. The tablet supports various formats like DOC, DOCX, PDF and PPTX and comes with a warranty of a year.
The tablet in the next version will be upgraded with a capacitive touch screen and a processor with double speed. DataWind has plans to provide an attachable Rs. 400 keyboard with the tablet to turn the tablet into a PC-like device at a price of Rs. 3,400.
The government is planning a proposal to provide the advanced Aakash 2 with a faster processor of 700MHz that too at the same price.