First look at India's 2nd-generation, USD $40 tablet | Hacker News Reader

First look at India's 2nd-generation, USD $40 tablet

bbc.co.uk

21 pointsnkoren27 comments

What are the differences needed to build a smartphone for the developing world markets?

In other words, what really sucks about smartphones in the developing world right now? Also note, that this is very likely to be different for different markets, and that the developing world is not one market, but many.

For one thing, I suspect that there are places where charging every week would be much better than charging every day. The device should also be designed as a standalone device, and it would also need to be backed by cloud infrastructure situated to create favorable latency and bandwidth for each market.

I, on the contrary, keep wondering who are the people for whom charging every day is much preferable to charging every week. Because most of the devices are obviously made for such people.

It's a question of the trade-offs to achieve that week of battery life. I have an extended battery for my phone which makes the phone bulky, but the battery lasts for nearly two days on a charge. If I were to significantly underclock the CPU and GPU, turn down the screen brightness, disable apps from running in the background, turn off GPS, keep data off, get an even bigger battery, etc., I could probably get a week of battery out of it, if not more. That would take away a lot from the experience though, and since I'm almost always near a power source, I'd rather keep the above features and charge every day. If you weren't, you might think that those tradeoffs were fair.

That's an interesting point that the parent post made - we probably shouldn't be thinking about these devices as just underclocked versions of first world devices. I think that you could design a positive user experience with all of the restrictions that I listed above (not ideal, but still positive), but it's not going to be achieved by disabling features of a super phone/tablet.

> turn down the screen brightness

Something like a Pixel-Qi screen would be beneficial in cloudless desert climates. An entirely reflective screen might be even better. City dwellers have no need to think about this, but there are many parts of the world where the outdoors aren't illuminated at night. If people are about after dark, they are likely to already have their own source of illumination with them.

A thicker, more robust form factor that's waterproof and buoyant might be beneficial for other climates. June through September is India's Monsoon season. That doesn't strike me as the friendliest climate for an iPhone.

Tl;dr: 20% Cheaper, double the processor speed, capacitative touch-screen, nifty built-in development environment, longer but still fairly sad battery life, and meshuggah old-school socialist distribution policies.

In India probably even a $200 Nexus 7 is considered too expensive for most people, but I can't help but feel that in the long term they would be better served by at least a $100 tablet (like Novo7) with the latest version of Android (this one is still running Android 2.xx), and with a battery that can last at least 8 hours turned on, so the students can use it all day in class. Why bother making a tablet for students that lasts only 3 hours and is still pretty slow?

"The World Bank estimates that 41.6 percent of India's population lives below $1.25 per day and 75.6 percent live below $2 per day."

A $100 tablet is staggeringly beyond their reach. A $40 tablet that can be shared amongst several people might be doable.

Right. So you're saying that from their perspective even this kind of tablet is a big deal for them. I can understand that. The good news is that the hardware price for these kind of devices is dropping fast (at least by 30% per year), so in 2-3 years they should be getting pretty decent tablet for that price. If you look at what $500-$1000 PC's and the Internet have done for the more advanced countries, these very affordable tablets should do the same for the whole of India and other Asian or African countries.

I totally agree. Moore's Law equivalents mean that this technology is becoming more affordable very quickly.

With huge consequences for access to information and high quality teaching / learning materials

The tablet isn't aimed at street beggers. It's aimed at schools to try and reduce the cost of textbooks - and ultimately teachers.

But since the Indian govt is involved it will end up being a massive sink of corruption, favours to suppliers and a total lack of investment in the resources, training and infrastructure needed to actually make it useful - pretty much like any govt "computers in schools"project in any country for the last 30 years

Since you can buy no-name chinese android 2.2 tablets for <$70 retail subsidizing this to $40 isn't really such a big deal

The target in this case must be the other 58.4 percent, then.

Not everything has to wait for the poorest to catch up.

There are some 950M cell phones in India. I've always wondered how the poorest of the poor actually afford these things. It isn't unusual to see someone who's leading an obviously poor life with a cellphone.

Used cellphones are thrown away; the poor get them for free. Incoming calls are free. You can buy recharge cards of Rs.5, which, I think, is within the reach of the poor

Interesting. I've also noticed that until about 5 years ago or so most people in India were using the Nokia models which had been phased out in US. My guess is that Nokia kept the factories running and sold the older models for a very low price to increase penetration, brand-awareness etc.

Perhaps this is a distribution model which would work. Sell high-end tablets to rich, status-conscious folks first (there are plenty of those in India now). Then as prices start coming down people of humbler means will want them and be able to afford them.

That is correct. Also,the meme about Nokia phones being indestructible is not without basis, so that helps too

If the tablet is really $200, it will be a huge hit here. Not in the lower class, but in the middle and upper class, but it wont be that price (about 10k inr) a 10 thousand tablet like the nexus will be more popular than anything else. But the target market for nexus and akash will be very different here.

The first tablet was a failure. It did not reach students, and the limited ones that eventually made to users had huge quality issues. I am not very hopeful of this version either, given the fact that it is promoted by India's notoriously corrupt bureaucracy.

They have tracking enabled on the devices so that they know who's in possession of a given tablet at any time.

I understand that from an inventory control perspective, but I wonder the privacy concerns of the tracking implemented.

...OLPC, Android "activation" etc.: very few wonder besides you. Most people aren't concerned, and that is the norm.

I reckon the Raspberry Pi is much more suitable than the tablet in the applications that he pointed out (C, C++).

Also, anyone knows how much the Indian government has subsidized the project so that they can sell at $40?

But the tablet enables the students to have hands on approach with a screen and input method. Raspberry Pi lacks in this respect.

India is good at producing cheaper technologies(PSLv is an example) and this will create a way for future tablet technologies to be cheaper and affordable.

Unfortunately these guys are just hacking together a supplychain. So this will be very different from something like PSLV :(. They are not really doing any "innovation". If they can at least keep corruption at bay, these tablets will just increase the total number of tablets in use in India, especially among a set of people who may not choose to buy the tablets for themselves. That is good thing n the long run.

Its actually not that simple. All the areas in which India has produced innovation/breakthroughs under the aegis of a govt. agency have all been "special cases". For e.g India's atomic research programme comes under the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) which was created specifically to avoid bureaucratic hassles (it should have ideally been under the Ministry of Science & Tech, but operates autonomously). It is this agency which provided the funding and direction and enabled the scientists to focus on R&D rather than the bureaucracy. The tablet project, on the other hand, seems to me like a publicity stunt.

Yes, let's spend more tax payer money, get more good will since the first attempt was such a grand success.

because the first one was a runaway success right?

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