The rise of the $20 7in tablet computer

Move over, iPad mini and Nexus 7. Here comes a real tablet for the masses.

 

Datawind, an India-based startup has built a seven-inch tablet called the Aakash 2, which runs Google's Android operating system and costs just $20 (P823.20).

 

Suneet Tuli, the 44-year-old CEO of the UK/Canadian/Indian Datawind, said the tablets could be used in education to as many as 220 million students.

 

“Our effort in all of this was to use technology to fight poverty. What happens when you try to make it affordable at this level?” he said in an article posted on Quartz.com.

 

Aakash means “blue sky” in Hindi, Quartz.com said.

 

Quartz.com said India's government may order as many as 5.86 million of the low-cost tablets, whose price is a tiny fraction of similar-sized tablets by Apple and Google.

 

The India-made tablet is even cheaper than counterparts in China, which cost some $45.

 

But it also noted the tablet may have problems maintaining a connection to the cell carriers due to competing traffic.

 

The basic Aakash 2 has wi-fi, though an upgraded model available for about $70 includes SIM cards and radio to communicate with a cellular network.

 

However, should costs fall, the company will incorporate these features into the base model.

 

Datawind also developed a compression and acceleration technology that can makes web pages load in three seconds instead of 15 to 20 using GPRS.

 

Also, Tuli believes he can bring the Aakash 2 to the US at a $50 retail price, and if trends continue, that price will continue to fall.

 

Tablet for developing world

 

Quartz.com said the tablet may be a good fit for India, where one billion people have a monthly income less than $200.

 

While India has 900 million cell phone subscriptions, 95 percent of Indians have no computing device - a void the Aakash can fill.

 

"If you’re a student with no other computing device, attaching a keyboard to it transforms it into a serviceable replacement for a traditional PC," it said.

 

The Aakash 2 is nothing like its underpowered predecessor Aakash 1, and has earned the respect of reviewers.

 

"It has a processor as powerful as the first iPad and twice as much RAM memory. It uses Google’s Android operating system, which now runs on three out of four smartphones and four out of 10 tablets shipped worldwide," Quartz.com said.

 

Also, it said the Aakash 2's LCD touchscreen displays full-screen video smoothly and browses the web, and it even holds up when playing video games.

 

Vivek Wadhwa, an entrepreneur and academic, said the revolution will come from the developing world to the US.

 

“These tablets will kill the markets for high-end players—for Microsoft in particular,” Wadhwa said.

 

He added that even priced at $40, the tablet's price could drop to $25 within a year.

 

Quartz.com also said many in Silicon Valley are fixated on cheap tablets.

 

“I see a lot of the PC makers and hardware companies [in the US] are going to build a tablet strategy,” said Jay Goldberg, a financial analyst who found in China how cheap functional 7″ tablets have become.

 

“But if there are already $45 tablets out there, even that second-tier strategy [of replacing lost PC sales with tablets] is going to fail,” he said.

 

Use in public education

 

The Indian government spends $13 per student per year just to ship them textbooks. In primary schools, all texts are based on a standardized, public domain curriculum easily transformed into free ebooks.

 

Now, the government is considering paying the full cost of the tablet when distributing them to primary-school-age children.

 

Tuli said the $40 the government pays Datawind for each tablet could be recovered over the projected three-year life of one of these tablets.

 

Aside from replacing textbooks, the Aakash 2 can also bring the full-fledged Internet to users, who can get an unlimited prepaid mobile data plan for $2 a month.

 

The Indian government is connecting 600 universities and 1,200 colleges with broadband and wifi, in addition to an effort to connect 250,000 villages with fiber-optic internet in the next two years, for $4.5 billion.

 

But Tuli said almost all connectivity to individual devices—the so called “last mile” connection of the internet—will be achieved through cellphone networks. — TJD, GMA News