The Third Generation Of Aakash Will Be Priced At Rs. 1500: Kapil Sibal

Aakash is first in a series of Android-based tablet computers produced by British company DataWind. It is manufactured by the India-based company Quad, at a new production center in Hyderabad, with a planned trial run of 100,000 units. The tablet was officially launched as the Aakash in New Delhi on 5 October 2011. The Indian Ministry of Human Resource Development announced an upgraded second-generation model called Aakash 2 in April 2012. recently, the Indian Minster of Communication and Information Technology has announced that Aakash 3 will be available soon at a price tag of Rs.1500/-.



The first iteration Aakash had a very poor quality Resistive screen. That version Aakash were called “fiasco” by the tech world in India. The first series made in collaboration with the IIT-Rajasthan. They had sent back 3,000 devices out of 10,000 sent to them. Those devices were sent back by the IIT-Rajasthan due to its bad screen panels and slow performance. That paved the way for a clash between the IIT-Rajasthan and DataWind company.



The second edition of the Aakash tablets were manufactured in collaboration with the IIT-Bombay. This time the tablet came out with improved the processor by replacing the old one with Cortex A8-700 MHz processor and expanding the RAM up to 256 MB. They also developed a software for it.



Now, the third generation Aakash tablets are under going multiple changes in the design & hardware. The tablet is expected to have a SIM card slot, a faster processor, higher memory capacity, and will be able to function on both the android operating system and Linux. The 7 inch tablet will be soon ready for a mass distribution as far as the reports are concerned. As per the word of the Government, the tablet will be sold at a price of Rs.1500/-. Presently, the DataWind company is selling Aakash to Indian Government at a rate of Rs. 2363/-. the Government manages to sell it for Rs. 1130/- by subsidizing the amount. Currently, the Government is reselling the tablets to Colleges, Universities & other educational departments to be handed over to their students.



The third version is manufactured by the same company, but this time it has outsourced the components of the tablet to a Chinese manufacturing Company. This time, there are inputs from IIT-Bombay Prof Deepak B Phatak, Prof Ashok Jhunjhunwala of IIT-Madras and other partners. Many IIT students across India are also involved in the project. Considering the academic brain behind the latest version of Aakash, we have every right to expect to see a much more refined & powerful hardware, that is coupled with intuitive and user-friendly software. The younger generation with all their dynamic potentials are included in this project. Definitely it is something that India can proudly look for.