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DataWind's 7-inch UbiSlate tablet heads to UK, starts at £30 (update: US too)
Remember the Aakash 2, India's $40 educational slate? It's finally making its way to the western world. The school-bound slab's manufacturer updated its UK website with three commercial variants of the devices, the UbiSlate 7Ci, 7C+ and 7Cz. Sound familiar? It should -- another version of the tablet (labeled 3G7) made its way through the FCC earlier this year, flaunting a 7-inch screen, a tri-band HSPA radio and a 2-megapixel camera. In fact, the federally inspected tablet matches the 7Cz in all but name, which offers a dual-core 1.2Ghz processor 8GB of storage and the aforementioned connectivity for £80. Knock that processor down to a 1GHz Cortex A8 CP, slash its (already meager) storage in half, and slow your wireless connectivity to Edge speeds and you're looking at the (currently unpriced) 7C+. Just looking for WiFi? That's the £30 7Ci, which Datawind specifically identifies as the consumer version of the Aakash 2. These specs are far from impressive, but the Ubislate (and its predecessor) weren't built to compete with the Nexus 7: Datawind aims its devices specifically at schools, building a budget product that can help further the education of students on a budget. That said, the company's website seems to be little more than a placeholder for now -- the tablet's product pages are incomplete, and there's no way to order the devices just yet. We're exactly not jumping to put these devices on our Christmas lists, but it's good to see the fledgling tablet reach out to a wider market. Update: All the above UbiSlate models are coming the US as well starting at $38, though the UbiSlate 7Cz will be known as the UbiSlate 3G7 in the US. As with the UK, there's no word on exactly when they'll arrive stateside.
Aakash 2 hands-on: the $40 educational slate with revolution on its mind
Efforts to put cheap computers in the hands of students have always hit major stumbling blocks. Most notably price. The OLPC project had noble goals, but ultimately ended up well above its target price of $100. The Classmate was more of a "me too" product than anything truly revolutionary. What started as India's effort to launch a $10 laptop, slowly mutated into a $35 tablet that, even then, struggled in its initial incarnation. What ultimately became known as the Aakash was painfully underpowered and had carried a cost almost double its $35 target. With the second version DataWind is hoping to make good on the promise of an ultra-affordable tablet that can actually be used by students and educators. CEO of the company Suneet Tuli swung by our offices with the Ubuslate 7Ci, the commercial version of the Aakash 2, to give us a chance to put the device through its paces and talk about the transformative power of education.
Aakash 2 Android tablet materializes, costs around $21 for Indian students
It's a few months late, but at least it's hitting the streets for a few less dollars than expected. The Datawind-built Aakash 2 is finally a reality, launching in India on the nation's National Education Day. It's the second iteration of what amounts to a barebones, affordable Android slate, packing a 7-inch touch panel, 1GHz Cortex-A8 processor, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of Flash storage, Android 4.0.3, built-in WiFi and a front-facing VGA camera. Reportedly, this one's going to be shipped to Indian students for Rs 1,130 (around $21), while outsiders will be able to snag one for closer to $80. Of course, the difference now is that these kinds of projects aren't quite as novel. Indeed, Chinese megashops are hawking low-rate Android tablets right now for around the same amount, setting a new (low) bar when it comes to pricing on ho hum slates. Still, we're all for getting technology into the hands of students, and you can learn a bit more about what those very students can expect from VentureBeat's hands-on just below.
Lexibook kids-tablet coming to the US, makes fifth-graders dream of an Aakash
French educational tech maker Lexibook is bringing its eponymous kiddy-tablet to the US from next month. It's not talking specs or price, but we're expecting it to be close to the Lexibook First currently available in Europe. The seven-inch slate packs a 600MHz processor, 256MB RAM, 4GB storage (expandable to 16GB with an microSD card), parental controls and 802.11 b/g WiFi. The FroYo-running device retails for £150 ($237) over the pond, but if the company tries something similar over here, we suspect people might plump for something a little more powerful, or less expensive, or both.
Refresh Roundup: week of April 9th, 2012
Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it's easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don't escape without notice, we've gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!
Aakash 2 to land in April, set budget tablet lovers back a measly $40
The device that started as a $10 laptop, graduated to a $35 tablet and settled on a $60 reality is about to get its first successor: the Aakash 2. Like its predecessor, the new Aakash is twist on a DataWind Ubislate, namely the Ubislate 7+. According to TechSnapr, $40 (or 2,000 Rupees) buys a 7-inch capacitive touchscreen, a 3200 mAh battery and a 700MHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor -- nearly doubling the oomph of the original. Datawind, however, pegs the Ubislate 7+ at familiar 2,999 Rupees (about $60), noting that the unbranded hardware runs Android 2.3 and features WiFi and GPRS connectivity. Students in India should be able to pick up the budget-friendly slab sometime in April, just like Kapil Sibal promised last month.[Thanks, Pravesh]
