Cheapest e-book reader (actually, tablet) ever

Another Editor said:

An Indian company has made an Android tablet that is slated for release this year. The price is in the neighborhood of $30 USD.

http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/fu...nches+cheapest+tablet+computer+&NewsID=304984

Two things come to mind here. First, why can't we have essential gadgets that are this cheap? And second, publishers have to start looking into marketing e-books in India if all of their university students are going to have cheap tablets soon.

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Ah, yes, the Aakash. Looks pretty impressive for the price. They'll be available in the West too before long.

It's not a particularly beefy spec; the touchscreen is not the capacitative kind we see on things like the iPad, there's not a lot of RAM, the battery life looks very meagre. But it's definitely a good reader device for educational purposes - ebook reading, colour screen, and I guess you could do light office stuff on it if the onscreen keyboard is any good. (I think you'd probably want a USB keyboard though.)

India is an absolutely huge potential ebook market and publishers are definitely looking at it.

I reminisce that not so long ago the the One Laptop Per Child foundation tried to provide cheap, durable laptops for those in need, the idea of small, affordable laptops caught on and gave birth to the netbook market. I wonder if the same will happen with this, an idea of cheap, affordable tablets (I could see these being a threat to ebook readers as the prices will be quite similar).

It actually kind of looks like the Sylvania 7" mini-tablet that places are selling in the US for around $50. It comes with a stylus, but your fingernail is better on the non-capacitive pressure-sensitive screen. 250MB of RAM, about 2GB of internal storage as I recall (expandable to 32GB), running a 1 GHz processor and Android 2.3.2 after updating. Multiple ports and Flash capability, but don't expect it to keep up for long. Third-party compatibility is available right out of the box though.

If it's anything like the other really cheap tablets already selling here, the consensus from reviews are "not worth it."

Yeah, I paid $199 for mine at ToysRUs and it is definitely not worth that price. $50 however? Maybe. The inconvenience might be worth the decrease in price and the potential usefulness for someone who really wants to explore the possibilities.

For someone who just wants to read ebooks, it's $30 cheaper than the Kindle, and from what I can see, somewhat more capable (Ive got SkyFire installed on mine and it's a capable browser).