Let’s be clear, this device won’t offer you performance that will impress you, but you can’t expect that for $35. As the main idea is to create a device to be used by students, it has an ARM Cortex-A8 processor running at 1GHz, 512MB of Ram, 7“ touchscreen display, front facing camera, 4GB internal storage and Android 2.3 Gingerbread. So they will be able to use it to display text, play non-HD videos, and provide internet access and similar stuff. The best thing for students in India is that they get it completely free, but other customers can buy it from retail stores for this ridiculous price.

According to rumors, the company already received an additional 5.5 million orders for new edition of this tablet, and if you consider that they already planned to produce 220 million units to distribute to students, those are some impressive numbers. The device is also expected to receive Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) in near future. What is the saddest thing is that this is only available in India, of course it's not sad for them, but why can’t western governments follow this and provide their students with free tablets. A similar project was One Laptop per Child back in 2005 that had the goal to provide affordable educational devices in developing worlds, mostly in Africa and South America. We could surely use more projects like this, if not for everyone at least for students and educational purposes. I wonder if there is a student that wouldn’t give $35 to have their own tablet and avoid carrying a much heavier laptop around the campus, probably not.

[Ed – in many “civilized” countries free items like this one would not go over well where many want the status of having the new “cool” gadgets. It is not about power or performance for some, but about the logo that is on the device. Still perhaps a program that provides assistance for students to get technology to help them would be a good place to start.]

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