It seems like a huge improvement over the original one, in both hardware and software (Android 4+, which makes more sense for tablets) and yet they managed to keep the same price.
The battery life is still probably pretty low as at this price level the battery will take up a big chunk of the cost, so they can't afford to put a very big battery inside. This is why I hope that for next year they use a single or dual core Cortex A7, which should be several times more efficient than Cortex A8, for about the same performance. It might be cheaper, too, as A7 is meant for low-end devices (and big.Little). They will also need to add at least a 1024x600 resolution (slightly higher PPI than iPad Mini at that size), to increase the sharpness of the display and make browsing better.
Using Jelly Bean next year will also add a significant performance/experience boost even with those low-end chips. Indians will soon get a very good tablet experience for less than $50. It won't be "cutting edge" in performance, but should provide for a very good user experience as far as most people using it will be concerned.
4GB would fit a lot of hypertext. Now, if they could create a "teacher's" version with 16GB, you could have multicast multimedia sharing over wifi, which would enable classrooms to use video content with only a fraction of expense in Flash RAM.
Sure, if you could ensure enough redundancy. But I wouldn't have enough confidence in such a system to preclude failure in the event of too many students absent.
I'll have to wait to see actual reviews of it, but on the surface it looks like they've addressed all but one of the major deficiencies of its predecessor. A very respectable feature set, at this price point.
The last point which needs to be resolved: production volume! At one lakh (100,000) units, that's enough to put tablets into the hands of less than .01% of India's population. Hardly a game-changer. The Indian electronics industry won't truly be mature until it starts thinking in multiples of crore (10,000,000).
It's a couple generations behind (iPhone 4/iPad 1 had cortex-A8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A4), but even the unsubsidised one is damn cheap, Rs 2263 = 41 USD
I think India has the right idea, it's quite a powerful computer, and it could be like the Apple][e/commodore 64/ZX81 by making it affordable to more people. As long as it a dev env is available (which android does).
Step up production, sell the subsidized in India, sell the unsubsidized version outside for E50, open up all software (including drivers). That would be a game changer as far as I'm concerned. This assuming it's nice of course and not something completely unusable.
Agreed with the other comments that things like this could be a game-changer for education in developing countries, but I do worry about sustainability. It's already a problem trying to get consumers to recycle old devices as is, but at least when devices are expensive they tend to have a life in the resale market. What happens when these devices are so cheap they're a commodity? And it's easier to just throw it in the bin and buy a new one than bother to sell it on? That's not going to happen in India, but it might when you can buy a $20 tablet in the US.
Such a tablet would be great for travellers too. I have a friend who's planning on doing extensive travel throughout Asia, and I've convinced her not take her Macbook Air. However, I'd love to recommend something like this to her, so she can get 'net access easily without having to rely on shady internet cafes. Any recommendations for an inexpensive tablet? Preferably, one that can take a SIM card?
Wow, if this works as advertised, this could really be a game-changer over the long term for education in third-world countries.
I would be much more motivated to donate money to get an education focused device like this into the hands of kids who don't have access to proper education than I would for most other causes because the impact on investment would be much more dramatic at $20/device.
Of not I recently saw a article that mentioned that alot of tech from global players released in India is always launch late compared to other countries and also alot more pricer, upto twice the price as what the rest of us pay. I still don't believe the nexus 7 has been released there yet and wiuth all these factors anything made a released localy at a respectable price is certainly going to do alot more good than it was intended. It may get the other companies to realise that a fairer price margin is needed.
Looking forward to a detailed review and hope it does not only what it was intended for but helps prevent the laglasture approach to technology in India by some companies who think its ok to sell the last years products at the price of this years products and last years combined.
Nothing is game changer, nothing is great here.
My experience is different. First, Where is the retail shop of this Akash tablet. It is not available anywhere, you either have to be a student of VERY VERY high profile English medium school (Whose student already have iPad) or you must be tech sevvy to order it online.
If you want to buy it from retail shop, there is no any warranty or guarantee. The retailer told me that its a China type product. Once you go out of the shop, the deal is finished.
Other thing, the ONLY tablet is for the price of $40, and you must have to buy a keyboard with it and a leather case both cost around more 40$ meaning total is for 80$.
Better way I will go for Micromax,
It's not for people who can afford a laptop/desktop, also know about the existence of Hackernews and know enough English to comment on it.
It's also not supposed to be available in retail market and will be directly provided to Government Universities, Colleges, Schools. I already know about a pilot project in National Capital Region(Delhi) as my cousins have registered for it.
Any keyboard will work with it. An Intex keyboard costs 3$ and Microsoft costs 20$. Leather/Synthetic case will be again for 4-10$.
This is ridiculous. There are already similar tables from China using AllWinner A10/A13 SoC with similar prices on volume (ARM Cortex A8 @1GHz, ARM Mali GPU, 512MB RAM, 4GB flash, etc.). My bet is that they are doing anything but buying in volume from China. Which is OK, but in my opinion it is not an Indian achievement at all.
Probably a better approach for GoI would have been to give away this console/tablet + basic phone connection for free.
And then open it up for people to create and add basic educational content, probably even let people evolve it to let people connect with each other and other dead simple activities.
Even stuff like plain email or a line-drawing app lets the disconnected individuals come out and say 'Namaste' to a world they've never seen.
Few thoughts that came to my mind. This is definitely a good initiative.
The battery life is still probably pretty low as at this price level the battery will take up a big chunk of the cost, so they can't afford to put a very big battery inside. This is why I hope that for next year they use a single or dual core Cortex A7, which should be several times more efficient than Cortex A8, for about the same performance. It might be cheaper, too, as A7 is meant for low-end devices (and big.Little). They will also need to add at least a 1024x600 resolution (slightly higher PPI than iPad Mini at that size), to increase the sharpness of the display and make browsing better.
Using Jelly Bean next year will also add a significant performance/experience boost even with those low-end chips. Indians will soon get a very good tablet experience for less than $50. It won't be "cutting edge" in performance, but should provide for a very good user experience as far as most people using it will be concerned.