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Datawind Aakash Android Tablets
The cheapest tablet in this range is CAD$43, for which you get a 7" screen device with WiFi, Bluetooth and limited but extendible storage, capable of web browsing, email, Skype, word-processing and e-reading. Not well, for sure, nor with any kind of battery life to speak of, and with a low resolution screen with a viewing position rather than range of angles.
But it's $43 (Canadian)!
That's less than plenty of internet-capable radios, MP3 players, electronic picture frames, or even sophisticated alarm clocks, all of which it can comfortably replace and actually do a better job. In fact, it's less than a meal for two (with drinks) at my local pub. The others in the range don't add much apart from a front-facing camera and very slow mobile data ($55), up to 3G phone and a slightly better screen for the top-of-the range UbiSlate3G7 for $90. Not too bad a price for an unlocked if totally enormous smartphone, though not the cheapest around.
The UbiSlates are Canadian, though the primary market for them is India, where they can be purchased for even less, and can come with $2/month mobile Internet (some US versions come with unlimited mobile web browsing for about US$100 a year). I think I might get one of these for the hell of it.
Jon Dron
Comments
Thanks for sharing Jon, you can't beat the price but are you getting enough in return. As you mention it is good for Indian market not so much for us because we are spoil with the latest and the greatest and want to get as much as from the money we spend.
On the other hand this product has a great potential for developing countries like India where people can't afford to buy basic food and can't think about this luxury.
Govt need to step in and help spread this among schools all over the country so future of the country can achieve their real potential.
Just my two cents :-)
Shafiq
Indeed, Shafiq, for a few more dollars we can get things that actually work properly.
From a different perspective, though, and bringing it home to AU, the average saving on e-textbooks compared with paper ones is around $37, I think. There has been a bit of resistance to our move at AU to e-textbooks, not all well-informed (there are big learning advantages to e-books as long as they are not used on traditional PCs and not locked in by unreasonable publisher-set conditions) but some of the criticism is well-justified, and most of it relates to inadequate technologies for reading. For an extra $6 on top of our current spend, we could give everyone a device that not only adequately replaces the paper book (and improves it in many ways) but also gives access to most of the online teaching tools we offer and much much more. For courses with two textbooks or for students taking two or more courses, we could give away these devices, greatly improve the learning experience for students, and still save money. The price therefore might make this a pretty disruptive technology. I want to try this out: it might not be adequate and maybe we need to wait a little longer for the right technology to arrive, but it's worth doing the research!