Hands On: India’s $35 Aakash Android tablet lands in America • Hacker News Board

Re: Hands On: India’s $35 Aakash Android tablet lands in America

#21

Post by msinghai » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 5:01 PM UTC

Not to discourage you guys, but, this tablet is horrible. I am a class X Indian student, just got this for 2300 from the government outlet at Delhi. Its too slow. The battery only lasts an hour or so even if it's plugged in for 5 hours. YouTube, is also way too bad. Wifi connectivity is messed up. To switch to a new network, you have to restart the device. It feels a bit cheap on the outside too and neither my USB Keyboard nor my external Hard disk was compatible. I'll give it a rating of 3 out of 6.

It's basically slow with its 300mhz processor. You can easily get 600mhz tabs at 38$ directly from the Chinese factories.

But, there is one good thing about this, which is the GPRS capability. It also comes with 100 mb free data per month plan.

Re: Hands On: India’s $35 Aakash Android tablet lands in America

#22

Post by jtchang » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 5:04 PM UTC

In many countries such as India and throughout asia people have never used a landline. Think about this for a second. Everyone carries around cell phones because they simply leapfrogged the infrastructure requirement for land lines.

A tablet like this is certainly going to change things. How cheap are cell phones these days? I'm not talking about that fancy iPhone you have in your pocket. I am talking about how much it costs to go into MetroPCS and grab a phone off the shelf. Or possibly WalMart.

If you thought we were connected as a world before things are about to drastically change even more.

Re: Hands On: India’s $35 Aakash Android tablet lands in America

#23

Post by nobody3141 » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 5:05 PM UTC

mortenjorck wrote: post #19

"Many of those likely to use or own the the Aakash Tablet will never have used a desktop computer, and it’s possible they never will." Not sure why, but I love concepts like this.

The largest percentage of cell phone users in the world will never have used a landline and never will.

It's a big mistake thinking that every new emerging economy has to go through the same industrialization steps in the same way as the last one.

Re: Hands On: India’s $35 Aakash Android tablet lands in America

#24

Post by nobody3141 » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 5:06 PM UTC

adimitrov wrote: post #20

nobody3141 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parts are pretty standard and the government can potentially buy them by million plus they can easily line up cheap manufacturing. The OLPC was a unique and novel design with no real momentum behind it. The main barrier to the success of this device is that since it's a government project at least 50% of the budget will be siphoned off into pork barrelling, ministerial pet projects and 'consultancy fees' to close…

India has a big problem with rampant political corruption. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_India

Really who would have guessed !

Re: Hands On: India’s $35 Aakash Android tablet lands in America

#25

Post by irahul » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 5:08 PM UTC

sharkman wrote: post #15

solutionyogi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. Right now I am in US and earn in dollars and support my family back home, even then my dad would never spend 1700 rupees on a night out. Also, if someone can afford to spend that kind of money for a night out, I am very sure they can afford a higher quality tablet. I think this is for someone like the maid who works at our home and makes around 3000 rupees a month. She can save money and buy this fo…

Wait.. you're saying by working in US, you can support yourself here AND support your family back home including hiring a maid!? I wish I could work there with a global pay salary...

> Wait.. you're saying by working in US, you can support yourself here AND support your family back home

Considering that 1 USD is 49.5 INR, why does this come as a surprise to you? For context, 1000 USD will be around 49000 INR at current conversion(it will be less but for argument's sake) which is more than what a software engineer with 3 years of experience makes in a month.

> including hiring a maid!?

I pay my maid 800 INR to do my dishes and clean the house. Manual labor in India is dirt cheap.

> I wish I could work there with a global pay salary...

It's easy. Find a contract job in the US which allows you to work remotely from outside the US, move to a country where the currency conversion makes you rich and cost of living is low. Places like Singapore won't work - currency conversion doesn't buy you much, and cost of living is high.

Re: Hands On: India’s $35 Aakash Android tablet lands in America

#26

Post by sroecker » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 5:11 PM UTC

amnigos wrote: post #13

I hope this device provides access to internet for all students. The big thing in education is "access to information".

I would guess this won't be easy in rural India.

It would be awesome if they load it up with lots of free ebooks and a decent offline copy of wikipedia (wikidroyd) from the start.

Re: Hands On: India’s $35 Aakash Android tablet lands in America

#27

Post by ippisl » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 5:16 PM UTC

nobody3141 wrote: post #2

It's $60 retail, there are $75 retail Chinese Android 2.3 tablets - they didn't change the world, why would this one? Is the government going to create online courses in English and Hindi? Is it going to have English lessons so you can access all those 'educational' Youtube videos? Is it going to record the best elementary school teachers and put their lessons online? Or is it going to be another - "we put computers…

Defintely the tablet by itself means nothing. it needs content. And it can be said that even 20 years ago the indian government could have put a tv + VCR + great recorded content in every classroom for what is relatively a small sum. Just doing this would have improved the current Indian system by leaps and bounds.

But maybe the thing about the tablet is that once people have the tablet, the government isn't the only one who can improve education. Private entrepreneurs, non-profits and juts plain teachers could build great content, market it, etc.

Considering the awfull state of indian education and(my guess) that indian educators are much less entrenched than westren ones(i.e. powerfull unions), affordable private education could really hit big in india, and a tablet at every hand could really be the needed channel for it.

Re: Hands On: India’s $35 Aakash Android tablet lands in America

#28

Post by bitwize » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 5:19 PM UTC

Does it really have a KISS-style logo on the back?

Re: Hands On: India’s $35 Aakash Android tablet lands in America

#29

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 5:20 PM UTC

jk-in wrote: post #18

nobody3141 wrote: post #2

It's $60 retail, there are $75 retail Chinese Android 2.3 tablets - they didn't change the world, why would this one? Is the government going to create online courses in English and Hindi? Is it going to have English lessons so you can access all those 'educational' Youtube videos? Is it going to record the best elementary school teachers and put their lessons online? Or is it going to be another - "we put computers…

Students will get this device for $35. It is not just about courses in youtube. Quite a few courses are already available in the educational network in India. At present, only a small section of the students have access to these; that too, only at school. The main objective of the government is to provide means to access these courses.

[deleted]

Re: Hands On: India’s $35 Aakash Android tablet lands in America

#30

Post by juxta » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 5:20 PM UTC

vijayr wrote: post #10

knodi wrote: post #5

Thats 1732.5 INR. Thats pretty good. Lower middle-class should have not problem affording this. As it costs less then a family night out in India.

wait!! you are saying a family night out in India would cost more than 1700 INR? Unless you are going to a five star restaurant, I am pretty sure this is not the case. This would be awesome if they don't allow the cost to increase, down the road.

I went to India last year and an average Indian restaurant meal at a non-high end restaurant was about 200INR for 2 people.

For a group of 8-10 people it was about 1000INR to eat.

On the other hand - if i went out to Dominoes and got a medium pie which basically only fed me - it cost 300-400INR. Quite the price difference. I noticed that most families got the single serve pizza and split it with their kids which cost about 50INR (that was the size of a personal pan pizza).