India's $35 tablet computer | Hacker News Reader

India's $35 tablet computer

blogs.suntimes.com

19 pointsyanw8 comments

First I thought, wow, in less than a day its price has already gone up from $30 to $35 (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1540120).

But then I realized the difference in number as reported by the two news outlets is probably just because of forex translation rates.

The R&D approach from the IIT's is a good one, but India, being India, I really wonder how much of that price tag is paying for the political "incentives."

I am a bit skeptical about the advertised price tag of $30. Last time when they released a $30 computing device(in 2009, see http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/02/indias-10-lapto/ ) it was just a glorified box with 2GB memory. I wonder how they managed to put a touch screen and a functional OS without increasing the cost by even a single dollar.

Anyways this is a big step towards lowering the cost of computing devices.

They're putting the reputation of India's best engineering schools on the line, so it can't be far from $30.

It's funny how they think manufactures will reduce the price over time instead of adding features to maintain the price/profit point.

At least how they do it here in the states, I mean my netbook was $170 last year and it's still the same price (or higher), just more things thrown in.

Still, it would be neat to have a computing device with decent abilities that could be found for $10 on pegboards @ dollar stores and Walmart, etc. just like calculators.

ps. the Tata Nano is $2000 in India http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Nano

but would be far more expensive here, so maybe the same goes for computers

$170 netbook? I haven't been able to find anything reputable-esque on Newegg or Amazon for under $250, so I've been holding out for ARM smartbooks and a price drop.

Hence my point I guess, prices only are going up, not down for some weird reason.

This is an acer aspire one. I only use it like an hour a month tops but it's nice to have an emergency backup.

I'd like to try it with Chrome OS someday.

I conjecture that the problem is that cutting a $250 netbook to $200 drops the price by 20%, but drops margins by a much greater fraction. For now, it looks like the market will bear $300+ netbooks, so we'll have to wait until more competitors enter.

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