14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that Datawind, the company that manufactures the cheapest Android tablet available on the market, plans to launch a makeover of the original Aakash slate.
Moreover, the company’s CEO, Suneet Singh Tuli, confirmed an Ice Cream Sandwich update would be available for Aakash 2 about six to eight weeks after launch.
The Aakash 2 has been slightly upgraded in comparison with the original model, but still doesn’t meet the requirements to run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system.
However, Datawind might tweak and optimize the ICS update especially for Aakash 2, so not all features and improvements may be available in the custom version.
Still, this is pure speculation as the company has yet to issue any additional details regarding this Android 4.0 update for Aakash 2.
All in all, the upcoming tablet is expected to be released with Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system and a low-performance 800 MHz single core ARM Cortex-A8 processor. It will have a 7-inch capacitive touchscreen display, 256 MB of RAM and 2GB of internal memory.
In comparison, the original Aakash tablet has a 366 MHz single core processor, a 7-inch resistive touchscreen display, and the same amount of memory.
The good news is that the Aakash 2 will be available for the same price for students and teachers living in India, $35 USD (25 EUR).
In fact, the production costs are somewhere around $45 USD (35 EUR) per unit, but the Indian government decided to subsidize the tablet and lower the price to $35 USD (25 EUR).
In the same piece of news, Suneet Singh Tuli revealed that the company plans to further upgrade the Aakash series of cheap tablets aimed at students.
In this regard, Datawind will launch a dual-core tablet (Aakash 3?) sometime this fall. Tuli is confident that by the time the slate enters production, the cost of Cortex A9 dual core processors will be low enough to sustain the cheap price.