India's $35 tablet may use Android
updated 04:25 pm EDT, Fri July 23, 2010
India Sakshat tablet to get Android OS?
The $35 tablet introduced in India this morning may run on the Android operating system and not just a straightforward version of Linux. The indication comes in the form of an Android notification bar on the device's screen in a video. Dubbed Sakshat, the device is meant as an educational device, much like the OLPC XO-1 netbook.
It would be much cheaper than the XO-1, however, which is priced closer to $100. India's Education Secretary, Sudeep Banerjee, criticized the OLPC notebook, calling it underdeveloped and "pedagogically suspect."
The Sakshat tablet may support extra apps from Android Market thanks to its Wi-Fi connection, but this hasn't been confirmed. It's expected to launch in India in 2011. [via BetaNews]
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Apr 2010
Good luck
$35 is a very, very small amount of money. Less that what a low-end mobile phone costs. The packaging alone would cost 10% of that. The software takes so much time. Good luck to them.
I feel like people focus too much on giving a kid a laptop and now a tablet. Have you seen a little kid with an iPod touch? They fly. They are just unstoppable. I would rather my kid had an iPod touch than an OLPC and they are similar prices in the same quantities. And iPod touch is more stable, less technical (therefore more broadly applicable to the liberal arts), much easier to use (again, more broadly applicable), and has 50,000 free apps, 30,000 free books, millions of free podcasts, free desktop class websites and Web apps, free rich email. Kids type 40 wpm on it, easy. At the very least, if you're going to make something custom, I think it should be judged compared to just deploying iPod touch to every kid, and a Mac/PC in every classroom. Especially when you consider Apple offered OLPC free Mac OS X, so in a similar effort to deploy iPod touch and buying in bulk, the school could get the very best prices from Apple. Also the parts and servicing of iPod touch is something that a small minority of technical kids in every school could easily learn. There are very few parts inside, the bulk of the complexity is in the world class software which you just get direct from Apple. That is a key benefit.