The Aakash Tablet is an inexpensive 7 inch Android tablet designed for use in Indian classrooms. The governent of India partnered with UK-based DataWind to produce a tablet that could be sold for as little as $35.

It’s not a very good tablet. It’s hampered by a slow processor, a resistive touch panel, and horrible battery life. But it’s cheap, and that makes it possible to provide low income students with access to an internet-capable device.

Now the Aakash Tablet, or something like it, could be on its way to the US.

Aakash Tablet

Financial Express reports that an official from Wilco Electronics is in talks with DataWind about the possibility of trying a pilot project in Philadelphia.

Wilco currently works with the Philadelphia Housing Authority to provide cable television and internet service to low income Philadelphians.

If Wilco does work out a deal to bring tablets into the classroom, it wouldn’t be the first time Philadelphia was in the news for making cheap tablets available. The company that owns the Philadelphia Daily News and Inquirer newspapers is already running a pilot program to sell inexpensive Archos Arnova tablets to Philadelphians at discount prices when residents subscribe to digital editions of the papers.

But Philadelphia isn’t India, and I suspect that students might be more skeptical of cheap Android tablets when sitting in a classroom just a few miles from a Center City Apple Store.

via Good E Reader

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10 replies on “India’s $35 Aakash tablet could appear in US classrooms”

  1. just imagine…here are foreign companies appreciating the product as they are analysing it in the right perspective, and we indians as ususual cannot get over our habbit of criticisisng all things!

  2. for the American market I’d say bring in Aakash 2 tablet because ATM the phone I am typing this out on is faster than the aakash 2 (optimus v). With the Aakash 2 you at least get capacitive screen I don’t think kids are going to have the patience to use a stylus on a resistive screen.

    1. it really sucks Mihir. I am one of the owner of this adultrated Aakash tablet.

  3. I’ve had a very bad experience with Aakash-1. the customer support is really bad and abusive. Now again they are starting to make a fool of Indians.

    Why is the indian government not understanding. Or may be they are taking good money from Datawind again to release the so call Aakash2. 

    Mr. Sibbal, you must have made a very good buck in this deal. am I right?

  4. Yea well the ungrateful little brats might need to be introduced to a little reality.  When they whine just ask em straight up: “Well we can buy ONE iPad and let the whole class try to share it or give everyone in the room one of these little guys.  Choose.”

    Any school contributing to Apple’s insanely great margins in this down economy should be severely punished by we taxpayers.  When we were awash in money the government, heck everybody, could afford to be foolish.  Those days are done.

    1.  Having one affordable tablet to yourself is infinitely better than having to share one iPad with 12 other people.

      Better yet with good software a dozen tablets can be much more valuable if they interact. Metcalfe’s law would indicate a factor of 144.

      If you can borrow e-books, access Project Gutenberg and Wikipedia, and use Khan Academy a tablet is a value beyond diamonds.

       

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