With enhanced features and specifications, the Aakash tablet will now be available at a cost almost double its introductory price.
Supposedly, the gadget failed to meet expectations of hundreds of students studying in Indian Institute of Technology all across the country. The IIT Rajasthan has released some criterion for Aakash tablet.
According to the standards released by IIT Rajasthan, the inexpensive tablet should function at a temperature of 20 degree and up to 50 degree Celsius. It also stresses the tablet to be waterproof along with enduring steep and sudden fall.
Not only this, it has specified a 1.2 Giga Hertz (GHz) microprocessor as against 366 megahertz (MHz) in Aakash and 700 RAM (Random Access Memory) megabytes, double of the original. The battery specified can run up to eight hours.
British manufacturing and marketing company ‘Datawind’ had got an order to supply the government one lakh tablets at a price of US $ 50. Reportedly, the technology companies who received orders from government to manufacture ‘Aakash’ say that it is impossible to supply a million tablets of Aakash -2 with these features at the original cost.
“Because of the higher price for a US dollar component will cost much more. Insulation costs are also very high”, quoted an officer of the public sector companies who wished to meet government’s requirement of a million tablets at the same price of US $ 50 or so.
Aakash tablet was launched in October 2011 by India’s Minister of Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal. According to reports taking round the new water and shock proof Aakash 2 with four time faster processor and better battery life will now cost US $ 100 (Rs 4900 approx.).
Copyright 2012
