$35 Aakash Android Tablet from India Finally Released

After about 4 years of development and several delays, the $35 Android tablet from DataWind and IIT Rajasthan has now launched. An initial run of 100,000 Aakash tablets will be sold to students first, enabling many of them to get online for the first time. Regular retail units of the Aakash at a higher price of $70 will be sold later.


At first the tablets were going to run Linux, but ultimately (wisely, IMO) Android was chosen as the OS, in this case, Android 2.2. More specs:

• 7″ resistive screen, 800 x 480
• 366 MHz processor
• 256 MB RAM
• up to 32 GB internal storage
• Wi-Fi only for student version, $70 retail version will have mobile broadband and SIM card

Of course, with such a low price for the tablets, compromises had to be made. But these tablets should work just fine for lightweight tasks such as web browsing and document creation. The Indian government bought the initial 100,000 tablets for $50 each, subsidizing $15 of the cost of the student version of the Aakash. The makers of the tablets hope to get costs down to $35 for everyone over time.





Via Dvice, Ubergizmo