Datawind, the supplier of Aakash tablet to Government of India’s highly ambitious project, will have to face many hurdles in securing order from Government,in the second phase of tendering, as more and more indigenous companies are coming out with economical tablets. Wishtel has announced the launch of its budget tablets – Ira and Ira Thing in the Indian market today.
IT products maker Wishtel on Friday said it will participate in the second round of bid for low-cost tablet PC Aakash, though it had lost out to Datawind in the first round.
Wishtel has launched two models of its tablets in the country. While one model will be running on Android 2.2, the other model will have Linux Sugar OS on-board. The cheaper version Ira features 7 inch resistive display, 800MHz VIA WonderMedia ARM SoC , Wi-Fi connectivity, 2GB internal memory, 512MB RAM, 3G modem support via USB, 3.5mm audio jack and a 2800 mAh battery. It is being sold at Rs 4,000. Ira Thing will come with 7 inch capacitive display, but rest of the specifications will remain same as Ira. It will be priced at Rs 5,500.
The company claims that the devices can also support 23 Indian languages with Linux operating system. Wishtel has a network of over 350 distributors across India. The devices are manufactured at its facilities in Maharashtra and Gujarat.s Ira. Both the tablets are now available nationwide.
If our honourable telecom minister has scant regards for easily available, locally developed and workable tablets then he should split tenders and award contracts to different local companies or reputed vendors so that even if a particular company is unable to fulfill its commitment then he can fall back on another companies and that will be the best recourse to implement the huge project of distributing the tablets to Indian students.
There is actually no competition to Datawind!
1. While the MRP of the UbiSlate7+ is Rs.2,999, the MRP of the Wishtel IRA is not known. They’ve mentioned a price of Rs.4,000 to the press and said that taxes and shipping are extra. The resulting MRP may endup at Rs.4,500 or higher. Is a product priced 50% higher than the UbiSlate7+ really a competitor?
2. Network Compatibility: Wishtel supports only WiFi at the Rs.4,500 price-point, and does not function as a phone or provide connectivity beyond a hotspot. DataWind’s UbiSlate7+ has a GPRS cellular modem, and incorporates patented acceleration technology to deliver anytime & anywhere internet access at only Rs.98/mo.WiFi is insufficient, and you need GPRS to allow for anytime & anywhere internet access. There are only 18 million broadband connections in India – hence only 18 million families have WiFi connectivity. Those 18 million people can afford and will only purchase an iPad, not a cheap Chinese resistive device. GPRS & Phone functionality will give the DataWind UbiSlate 7+ a significant advantage.
3. Processor: The UbiSlate 7+ has a much faster processor. While Wishtel claimed a 800Mhz processor speed to the press, they did not mention details of the specific processor. The processor details are available on the Wondermedia website. The processor specs indicate a 600 Mhz speed, not 800 Mhz – it’s possible 800Mhz is obtained by overclocking – which won’t be sustainable. More importantly, Wishtel’s device is on a Arm-9 processor, whereas the DataWind unit is on Cortex A8. The Cortex A8 architecture is 3x faster than Arm-9. So a Cortex A8 – 800 Mhz processor will perform at the same rate as a 2.4GHz – Arm-9 processor. Wishtel’s processor is only equivalent to 200 Mhz in Cortex A8 terms.