At last India’s $35 Tablet PC has come out public in “Gadget Guru” Show in NDTV, a famous News Channel in India on August 12, 2010 as India’s Independence Day special and shut down mouths of people all over the world who argued that it is impossible to build a PC for $35 which features 2GB RAM, Wi-Fi and 3G, microSD storage and running on Android OS.
India’s human resources development minister Kapil Sibal has unveiled a prototype tablet PC priced 1,500 rupees or $35, a price that is set to challenge the global manufacturers of tablet PCs.
Many global manufacturers said it is impossible to make such a tablet PC just for $35, but Indian government have proved that they can make wonders and capable of taking challenges and gives perfect output. This is a second product from the country after unveiling a $2,000 car Nano by Tata Motors in 2008.
The ultimate motto behind this is to spread tablet PC usage to every rural region in India which possibly make every individual aware of PC and how fast the technology growing and making every child literate. Thus achieving a new revolution in India.
So far the cheapest device in the category is of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) laptop unveiled five years ago with a price tag of $100.
The proposed tablet intended to enhance of the educational standards at the colleges and universities in India, the tablet’s going to the cheapest tablet PC even when cheaper than Nicholas Negroponte’s $100 OLPC (which finally ended up to $200). The tablet features web browser, multimedia player, pdf-reader as well. As you can see in the video below, the device successfully sustained the efforts of the hosts of the show to make it crash. The only issue that the hosts of the show found as you can expect was with it’s not-so-quick responsive touch screen. This is obvious as we can’t compare it with the capacitive touchscreen devices of the likes of Apple. The motherboard was developed by India’s top technical students from Indian Institute of Technology, premier technology institute in India.
Indian government is considering a 50 percent subsidy on the product for educational institutions bringing down the effective price of tablet PC to 750 rupees or $18. Ultimately, the government aims to bring its price to 500 rupees or $10. The device is being developed as part of the government’s National Mission on Education through information and communication technology.
Indian government plans to make this tablet available for the students in universities by the mid 2011. The $35 price tag is expected to raise by a few bucks when it enters the retail market.
Video:
Watch the recorded video of the program appeared on TV. Skip to around two and half minutes to watch the main part of the video that we are looking for. Video loads after a Volkswagen commercial.
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