of the world's cheapest tablet
has put up for sale about 30,000
tablets online at a price of Rs
2500 each, with a delivery period
of seven days.
The seven inch tablet with
Android 2.2 is now available
through its portal
aakashtablet.com. "We have put
up on sale about 30,000 tablets
online, which will have a cash on
delivery of 7 days. We have
achieved pre-sale orders of
about 400,000 tablets from
individuals and corporates. But
current supplies will only be
limited for individual buyers,"
Datawind CEO and founder
Suneet Singh Tuli told ET.
Aakash's next commercial
version called the Ubislate 7,
which has a faster processor, is
slated to be launched late
January. Ubislate 7 is set to have
a 700 Mhz processor compared
to the 366 MHz processor in
Aakash. Ubislate 7 will be priced
at Rs 3000 for sale online.
Datawind though seems to be
struggling with customer service
issues for online retail, even
though the sale is only for a
limited number of tablets.
According to sources, the Indian
government is also planning to
provide a new specification for
Aakash, which may come with a
faster processor and better
battery life. The current version
of Aakash has a battery life of
about 1.5 hours. An email to the
Ministry of Human Resource and
Development, which is supplying
the tablets to schools and
colleges remained unanswered.
The government till now
procured only 10,000 tablets. It
has still not procured the
remaining 90,000 tablets for
distribution in schools and
colleges, even as other nations
have expressed interest to the
government for similar low-cost
computing initiatives.
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