India's $35 'Aakash' Tablet Computer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-15180831

this tablet has a slower CPU than the first Android phone, and that wasn't really up to doing much.

nope.avi

Trial roll-out to 500 students then if viable production model to be sold at 60$.

Probably still pricy for the demographic - but might suffice.

oscillik - this isn't for you or people in the "developed" world.

  On 10/5/2011 at 9:12 PM, chenGOD said:

oscillik - this isn't for you or people in the "developed" world.

it has nothing to do with "developed" world.

the CPU is simply underpowered for the purpose that is being proposed.

the 528MHz CPU that was in the T-Mobile G1 was barely capable of pushing 320x480 pixels on a 3.2 inch screen while handling all the low level phone stuff.

the 366MHz CPU in this thing is expected to do just a bit too much. anything more than 320x480 on a 7 inch screen and this thing will be like trying to run Windows XP on a Pentium 166MHz MMX.

i'd say that this project will fail.

60$ when that Samsung tablet got dropped to 99$?

  On 10/5/2011 at 9:18 PM, oscillik said:

  On 10/5/2011 at 9:12 PM, chenGOD said:

oscillik - this isn't for you or people in the "developed" world.

it has nothing to do with "developed" world.

 

the CPU is simply underpowered for the purpose that is being proposed.

 

the 528MHz CPU that was in the T-Mobile G1 was barely capable of pushing 320x480 pixels on a 3.2 inch screen while handling all the low level phone stuff.

 

the 366MHz CPU in this thing is expected to do just a bit too much. anything more than 320x480 on a 7 inch screen and this thing will be like trying to run Windows XP on a Pentium 166MHz MMX.

 

i'd say that this project will fail.

For a person who has never had the opportunity to use a tablet before because they couldn't afford one, the specs are meaningless.

  On 10/5/2011 at 9:29 PM, chenGOD said:

  On 10/5/2011 at 9:18 PM, oscillik said:

  On 10/5/2011 at 9:12 PM, chenGOD said:

oscillik - this isn't for you or people in the "developed" world.

it has nothing to do with "developed" world.

 

the CPU is simply underpowered for the purpose that is being proposed.

 

the 528MHz CPU that was in the T-Mobile G1 was barely capable of pushing 320x480 pixels on a 3.2 inch screen while handling all the low level phone stuff.

 

the 366MHz CPU in this thing is expected to do just a bit too much. anything more than 320x480 on a 7 inch screen and this thing will be like trying to run Windows XP on a Pentium 166MHz MMX.

 

i'd say that this project will fail.

 

For a person who has never had the opportunity to use a tablet before because they couldn't afford one, the specs are meaningless.

when you find that it can't do what it's been designed to do, that's when they matter.

Errm, what has it been designed to do?

To be honest, I'd wager that it's too expensive, not too shittily specced.

  On 10/5/2011 at 9:49 PM, chenGOD said:

Errm, what has it been designed to do?

To be honest, I'd wager that it's too expensive, not too shittily specced.

according to the article, web browsing and video conferencing.

that's on top of actually running Android 2.2.

it is both way too underpowered, and way too overpriced.

I'm sure it will be able to browse the web, although it will probably struggle on flash intensive sites. But for places like wikipedia, google books, google scholar, university library sites it will be fine.

Video conferencing...well...probably keeping the video window small? Will it be stock Android? probably not. Anyways, as mentioned - this is just a trial - 500 students first.

you can do plenty with that amount of processing power. at least plenty education related. not so sure about their claims of video conferencing, but certainly browsing lighter websites and doing other crap shouldn't be a problem.

also it runs linux, not android specifically. it could be very well optimised to the device. it doesn't have to do as much phone crap in the background, it's not trying to run games and gps shit, it's much lighter weight than an android phone.

according to this, it most definitely is Android.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4dltcHzcgY

we'll see what happens. of course.

android 2.2, but it has its own GPU. so that'll solve some issues.

apparently it's only an on-chip GPU, which doesn't really bode too well. would help if there were some solid specs on what is inside it, but there's nothing out there.

yeah

i mean surely it will be slow and sucky but some internet access is better than no internet access, especially when you are a (n incredibly) poor student in india. comparing this to anything we have access to is kind of missing the point of the device. it might be sucky in every way from our perspective but im sure plenty of broke ass ppls in india will love the shit out of it.

it's cheaper than the last TI-whatever graphing calculator my school forced me to buy in the late '90s, and it probably does at least slightly more.

edit: plus it's made in India so you know the tech support will be top notch

  On 10/5/2011 at 10:33 PM, baph said:

it's cheaper than the last TI-whatever graphing calculator my school forced me to buy in the late '90s, and it probably does at least slightly more.

 

edit: plus it's made in India so you know the tech support will be top notch

fucking zole!

here's to strapping a few hundred million more souls in the internets

  On 10/6/2011 at 12:43 AM, troon said:

here's to strapping a few hundred million more souls in the internets

Yeah it would be a real shame if all those people had access to and were able to contribute to the knowledge banks that the internet is. Not everybody spends their time posting trite "first world guilt assuaging" gibberish on forums.

Looking forward to the '3rd world problems' thread

lol