DataWind, the Canadian company that is manufacturing
Aakash, has started the online booking and pre booking of the much anticipated low cost
Android tablet. Online booking is for students' version of the
tablet and pre booking is for UbiSlate 7, the upgraded version of Aakash.
Students' version of
Aakash
will be available for Rs 2,500 and will be delivered in seven days. The
commercial version, UbiSlate 7 is priced at Rs 2,999. The payment mode
for both the tablets is cash on delivery.
The commercial version
of Aakash tablet will be powered by Android 2.3 and will have a
resistive touchscreen, Cortex A8-700 MHz processor and graphics
accelerator HD video processor, 256 MB of RAM and 2 GB of internal
memory.
Other specifications are a one standard USB port, 3.5 mm
audio jack, a 7 inch display with 800 x 480 pixel resolution, resistive
touchscreen, GPRS and WiFi support.
"The improved version of Aakash tablet will be available in retail outlets by January end," a
spokesperson of DataWind told The Mobile Indian.
The
tablet was to be made available in retail stores by the end of November. "The delay in the availability of the
tablet has been due to upgradation in the
tablet and some unforeseen delay in manufacturing," the
spokesperson said.
To book and prebook student and commercial versions respectively of Aakash tablet, users have to visit DataWind's
website and
fill up the required form. In case of booking they will get a booking
ID and a message which will state, "You will shortly receive an email
confirmation from our support team with further details."
In case
of pre booking users will get a confirmation message which will state,
"The commercial version of the Akash UbiSlate 7 would be launched in
early weeks of December. After the commercial launch we would get in
touch with you to deliver your device as soon possible."
As a
matter of fact, the confirmation message a reader will see is factually
incorrect as The mobile Indian had reported earlier the Aakash tablet
will be available only by January end.
Datawind has however not
cleared how it is going to establish the identity of students who will
book the cheapest version of Aakash tablet. When The Mobile Indian
contacted spokesperson of Datwind he said, "Anyone can book the student
version of Aakash tablet."
This defeats the purpose of providing students an affordable
tablet as now anyone can place an order to get the
tablet.
Interestingly, now it has been revealed that the government has
procured only 10,000 Aakash tablets for distribution in schools and
colleges of the initial 1 lakh proposed.
It looks like the
company was in a hurry to start the online booking process and has not
done not proper homework before staring it
jai mAta di
