Remember famed $35 “Aakash” tablet launched in India last year? Well is been a year since then and the Indian Government thought its time the Aakash received an upgrade. Thats exactly what has happened now with the arrival of the Aakash 2. Thats right. The successor to the worlds cheapest tablet is here now. The Aakash 1 was an Android 2.2 based, barebones tablet that was not very well received by reviewers and users alike. Will the Aakash 2 change that perception?
Just like the first generation Aakash tablet, the Aakash 2 has been manufactured by UK based firm Datawind. Previously, the company had collaborated with IIT Jodhpur to manufacture the tablet. However, due to differences between them and the Institute, there were issues in the production and delivery of the product. This time round, Datawind has tied up with IIT Bombay for the same and hopefully we would be seeing a smoother rollout.
The Aakash 2 is the same model as Datawind’s own Ubislate 7Ci tablet which sells for $64 commercially. However, the same device would be rebadged as the Aakash and sold for as little as $25 – thanks to the subsidies that the Government would impose on the device – thereby making it even more affordable.
The Aakash boasts of a 1Ghz Cortex A8 based processor, 512 MB of RAM, a 7 inch capacitive display with a resolution of 800*480 and internaL storage capacity of 4GB. You can of course use a micro Sd card to expand that further by 32 GB. The device would also run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich – which is a welcome upgrade from the Android 2.2 based older device.
It also gets a front facing camera and will last you for around four hours of continuous usage – which is not very great if you ask me.