India gives Android-based educational tablet another go

The UbiSlate tablet
Source: Datawind On the country's National Education Day yesterday (Sunday), India's president Shri Pranab Mukherjee unveiled a new Android-based tablet computer for the education sector. The Aakash 2.0 succeeds another version of the tablet which was introduced in India last October but, according to some media reports, failed to establish itself due to poor overall performance.

The new Aakash tablet has a 7-inch capacitive touchscreen display (800 × 480), a 1GHz Cortex A8 processor, 512MB of RAM and 4GB of built-in flash memory; with a microSD card, users can add up to an additional 32GB of storage. It also includes a front-facing VGA camera and built-in Wi-Fi connectivity. Whereas its predecessor ran Android 2.2 "Froyo", the current tablet runs Android 4.0.3 "Ice Cream Sandwich".

The commercial version of this tablet is the UbiSlate 7Ci and costs 4,499 rupees (approximately £52) when purchased from its British manufacturer, Datawind; the Indian government subsidises the tablet for children and students, who will pay just 1,130 rupees (£13). Business Today reports that before the tablet becomes available to students to be used, for example, in "virtual classrooms" or for video conferences, approximately 15,000 teachers at 250 engineering institutes will get an opportunity to familiarise themselves with the device.

(crve)