Aakash, the world’s first tablet device to sport the $99 price tag — this until the Nova 7 came over — is available online right now. Datawind has put up 30,000 of the Aakash tablets for sale and will take about a week to reach consumers’ end. However, if the official retailing site — aakashtablet.com seems to be lacking on authenticity, eager buyers can still go for the tablet by availing of the Cash-On-Delivery option. This can be reassuring to a lot to buyers as they won’t have to part with their money before having the product in their hands.
“We have put up on sale about 30,000 tablets online, which will have a cash on delivery of 7 days. We have achieved pre-sale orders of about 400,000 tablets from individuals and corporates. But current supplies will only be limited for individual buyers,” revealed Suneet Singh, founder and CEO at Datawind.
The Indian Government has so far procured only 10,000 of the ultra cheap tablet PCs of the 1 lac units that it had promised to buy in the first phase. Also, there is no word out yet as to when the tablets would be made available to school and college students as was initially planned. In fact, as per TOI, the Indian government is also planning to come up with a new set of specifications, one that envisages a faster processor and improved battery that betters the current backup time of about 1.5 – 3 hours which is pitiable by any means.
Datawind has also stated the next version of Aakash named Ubislate 7 is already slated for a release sometime in January next. The Ubislate will be powered by a  700 Mhz processor, almost double the  366 Mhz processor that currently finds application in the Aakash. Price too will be upped to INR 3,000 for the Ubislate 7, up from the INS 2,500 that the Aakash commands right now.
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. The motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot, and I'll likely make a film sometime in the future.
