Ubislate 7Ci Goes On Sale In The UK: Price Tag: £ 30

[6Foot2]

Link 1: Datawind Aakash Android Tablets | Best SIM Tablet | Phablet Phones

 

Haven't heard anything about this device before today. The price makes me think that it is too good to be true. Opinions?

[LeMarchand]

Read about these elsewhere. I think they were originally made for the Indian EDU market and are now expanding. One of my schools wants a load of tablets; may suggest getting one to try but the previous Android trial didn't progress very far due to lack of time. The PTA are keen on tablets, but I suspect they are envisaging kids getting free iPads to bring home...

[nikaso]

'lightening fast speed' combined with 'feel the real & amazing experience of using the tablet more deeply' make me think it's a bit dodgy.

[fiza]

I read about this on wired a while back.

 

Datawind's £29 Aakash Android tablet planned for UK this year | Wired 2013 video (Wired UK)

[IrritableTech]

I'm sure we'll slate the build quality, the version of the OS, the expandability, the speed, the battery life, the....

 

But goodness - it really is getting towards the point where everyone can truly afford a device, and that's surely a good thing?

[sted]

I'm sure we'll slate the build quality, the version of the OS, the expandability, the speed, the battery life, the....

 

But goodness - it really is getting towards the point where everyone can truly afford a device, and that's surely a good thing?

 

depends who you mean by everyone theres some people shouldn't be allowed an etch a sketch never mind a computing device

[Jamman960]

Might be worth a look but I suspect it'll have a poor processor to go with the other poor specs

[LeMarchand]

the DataWind device seems like the best bet to get the internet into the hands of millions students in developing nations

 

Given the environs of most of my schools, it'll be fine then.

[SovietRussia]

Might be worth a look but I suspect it'll have a poor processor to go with the other poor specs

 

ARM 1GHz, 512mb RAM, 4gb Storage.

[IrritableTech]

depends who you mean by everyone theres some people shouldn't be allowed an etch a sketch never mind a computing device

 

I was quite careful to say it's getting towards the point where everyone can afford a device. Those that want one of cause.

[DSapseid]

ARM 1GHz, 512mb RAM, 4gb Storage.

 

That was the aakash 1 the aakash 2 has a Cortex A8 1.8ghz!

[Dos_Box]

I wonder if there will be any at BETT? Whilst a noble idea to produce a device so cheaply, if it's not going to be able to run newer software after 12-18 months because of a lack of performance then it may not get much take up.

Saying that though, I'll bet a few here have older tablets with single core processors in the classroom that are managing just fine.

[Arthur]

Review: Ubislate 7Ci, the world's cheapest tablet « Phone Cruncher

 

The Ubislate does come with a camera, but it's basically unusable. It's a hideous front-facing, 0.3 megapixel snapper (it reminds us of the camera on the old Gameboy) and the Ubislate is too weak to run any decent video-calling services such as Skype at high speed.

 

The user experience is sluggish and during our time with the tablet we experienced a number of system crashes. Sometimes, when running an application or browsing a website that was particularly image-heavy, the device would seize up and throw us back to the main menu.

 

Videos run well on the Ubislate, however. They don't look particularly nice, but it terms of frame-rate there's not much to complain about. We ran videos off of the SD card and through the YouTube application (which we downloaded from the Google Play Store) with relative ease.

 

Whereas video playback is fairly lag-free, internet browsing is a different story. By default, the tablet comes with Ubislate's own browser, UbiWeb. It was a truly hideous experience having to navigate the web using UbiWeb, so we quickly ditched it and installed Google Chrome.

 

Running on Google Chrome, the Ubislate 7Ci is still a slow experience. One possible fix can be made by telling the browser to show mobile-friendly versions of the sites you visit the most.

 

We ended up uninstalling around 20 different applications that shipped with the Ubislate that we simply didn't need. As the tablet is primarily used for educational purposes in India, there's a load of apps aimed at the little ones piled onto the 7Ci's memory.

 

In general the Ubislate 7Ci offers a very slow user experience, but if you're not asking much of the tablet, it's just about usable.

 

This is a sluggish, low-spec tablet with an interface that you certainly won't be whizzing through. More often than not, you'll type in a command or make a gesture across the screen and find yourself waiting a couple of seconds before the Ubislate springs into life.

 

We'll admit that the Ubislate was handy to have around to save us powering through our phone battery, but it only takes 3 hours to run the Ubislate from 100% charge to 0%.