The Aakash, called the world’s cheapest tablet, has faced a barrage of recent criticism. Reviewers and others say it is not good enough, but the few who have used it are not so sure. Is it a washout?.
Is the Aakash tablet a washout? If you read the professional tech reviewers, you would imagine so. If you read the newspapers, which have picked up on criticism from IIT Rajasthan, the implementing agency for the government’s Low Cost Access Device (LCAD) project, you would say yes. But if you read the visitor comments on tech websites, and ask the very few students who have actually used the Aakash, you would not be so sure.
Sonali Garg is a first-year student of commerce in a Chandigarh college. She was among the first students to get the Aakash, right after it was launched by Human Resources Development Minister Kapil Sibal in Delhi on October 5, 2011. She refuses to hand the tablet back to college authorities (so it is a good thing the December deadline to return the trial tablets has been extended to March 31). After college ends every day, while Garg waits for her father to pick her up, she surfs the Web on her Aakash.
If this is true, it implies that the tablet meets at least the amusement needs of a middle-class college student — and has done so for three months now. It also suggests that the device delivers a reasonable Internet connection speed (“good if not excellent”, according to other students) and is convenient to carry around. Since Garg’s is a test device, she was not charged for it. But if the tablet can do even these few things at the low cost advertised (a subsidised Rs 1,138 for students, and Rs 2,999 for the commercial version, neither of which is available yet), it may not be the failure that some have assumed.
In a speech at a chamber of commerce event this week, Suneet Singh Tuli, chairman and CEO of DataWind, the Canadian tech company that is manufacturing the Aakash in India, announced that his company has already received 6 million bookings for the commercial version of the Aakash, called the UbiSlate. Individual bookings are 2.3 million, and the rest are institutional and bulk orders.
This, says Tuli, despite the “negative publicity”. And he adds, with relish, that immediately after critical stories about Aakash broke in the press at the beginning of January, bookings via the DataWind website went up from 30,000-40,000 a day to 70,000 a day.
The critical reports followed the lead of feedback from the LCAD team at IIT Rajasthan, after the first 10,000 Aakash tablets were delivered by DataWind, about 1,000 of which were handed out to students. The complaints included reports of a battery life of under three hours, a resistive touchscreen that was not sensitive enough, a slow processor, not enough applications or “apps”, and not enough storage space.
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According to Tuli, in every case the tablet meets the specifications laid down in the original tender, which included a 7-inch resistive touchscreen (not capacitive, which is better but significantly more expensive), Google’s Android 2.2 operating system, a 366 Mhz processor, 256 MB RAM, a 2,100 mAh battery, two USB ports, a memory card slot, and Wi-fi Internet access. The trouble is, he says, the specifications were decided in 2009 and the tender closed on February 15, 2011.
“Unfortunately these specifications were very, very low-end,” Tuli says in an interview. “We had submitted a proposal to IIT Rajasthan back in October [2011] that they should allow us to provide a higher-end product at the same price because it will give a better user experience. But in order to provide this we will need extra time.” Which he did not get.
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Tech writer Prasanto K Roy, in an early and influential review published on the PCQuest website on November 1, 2011, had five points of criticism. First was the absence of an “ecosystem”, including “apps, content, training and support, power at every school desk”. Second, he said Aakash was too small and battery life too short for “serious student use”. Third, it wasn’t as good as Apple’s iPad in terms of usability. Fourth, government support would block “rapid evolution and improvement”. And fifth, for educational purposes, was this “the best use of a million dollars”?
His solution: an e-reader “like the Kindle”, because plenty of content is already there, and battery life is good. However, the National Mission on Eduction through Information and Communication Technology, or NME-ICT is already making apps and content available through various websites; 150,000 apps, according to DataWind, are available.
Chandigarh student Priyanka (last name not given), one of 20 or so students in her college who received the trial version of Aakash in October 2011, says that since her campus is Wi-fi enabled, she has easy access via the tablet to the college e-library. She reads ebooks on the tablet in pdf format. Shefali Monga, a second-year student of Government College for Girls, who also has a trial Aakash, maintains that its chief advantage, other than cost, is that it is easy to use and easy to carry.
Feedback from student users contributes to reports on the Aakash from colleges with test devices. The reports go to IIT Rajasthan. One college prepared a concise list of pluses, minuses and recommendations. Wi-fi connectivity, screen quality, the multimedia experience and portability were good, the report said, and the tablet could indeed make a useful educational tool, in class and out. But the poor battery life, long charge time, lack of GPRS (for Internet through the cellphone network), propensity to heat up or hang, and two or three more niggles were not so good. Among the suggestions, more colourful body options, an in-built camera and a port for a 3G Internet dongle.
Tuli says no such feedback has yet been forwarded by IIT Rajasthan to his company. Following the early criticism, however, DataWind announced in early January that an updated Aakash 2 would go to students at the same price, and the commercial version, UbiSlate 7, would also be upgraded to UbiSlate 7+ for Rs 500, raising the price from Rs 2,499 to Rs 2,999. The improvements include a 3,200 mAh battery, a 700 MHz processor and GPRS. These devices should start shipping in the next few weeks, and DataWind is scrambling to raise capacity to meet the unforeseen demand.
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As for student demand, it is not yet robust. In Panjab University, with 12,000 students, just about 1,000 orders have been placed, according to Tankeshwar Kumar, director of the computer centre, though the number is growing. (It is still not clear, he says, how the government subsidy will come to the university and how the tablets will be given against the bookings.)
In the private Orissa Engineering College in Bhubaneswar, which has 2,700 undergraduates alone, 1,195 students and 133 staff have registered to buy. According to comments online, several colleges and even some DAV schools have opened bookings, though details are not available. According to HRD ministry statements, the plan is to start by providing college students with the tablet and then extending the programme downward to school students and so on.
For Tuli, though he is looking forward to the next government tender in February for 2 million units of Aakash 2 — this one not administered by IIT Rajasthan — which he expects to win, the real value will come from what he says is a massive and unserved market for cheap computing. “You can’t say that for Rs 3,000 I can buy a phone that does the same thing,” he says, tackling another line of criticism. “The cheapest smartphone is twice as expensive, it has no fast Internet, no HD-quality video and a small screen. There is nothing else in this range.” He adds that every six months DataWind will produce a new and up-to-date device.
Not a washout, therefore, but a promise yet to be fulfilled.
Vikas Sharma in Chandigarh contributed to this article
