Race among the student tablets
Education is going tech-savvy, Tablet PCs join the race to aid students in brightening young minds.
My Dad used to tell me stories of his childhood when students used to study under the tree with only slates and chalk as tools to attain wisdom. As we all know a lot has changed since then from smart classes to online exams, video lectures and more is pouring in. Tablet PCs have come a long way since Microsoft launched the first tablet PC in 2000; especially Apple has turned it into a fashion symbol. We all had heard the buzz about the cheap tablet our education minister offered us to help us with our education (Seriously??). Akash tablet as it is called was supposed to provide students with all the e-education material at a fairly cheaper cost (dreading iPad?). Soon others joined the race to make the lives of Indian student better. So like our education system I have tried to grade the tablets and we have some winners and losers.
Micromax Funbook Tablet
Among the winners from my point of view, it is like a guy who scores a lot without doing much hard work. I give it an A-. The Micromax Fun tablet runs on the latest android 4.01 ICS so promises faster performance, more flexibility and lesser bugs. It comes with a VGA camera for video calling and chatting. According to certain reviews people find the architecture quite similar to Samsung Galaxy Tab (what else do u need..?) A dual 400 2D/3D video processor is also added to it for smoother video transmission of media and graphics thus promising better game play. The internal memory can be extended to 32 GB and a RAM of 512 MB which is higher than most of its counterparts. A capacitive touch screen, pinch zoom feature, resolution of 800 x 480 and an aspect ratio of 16:9 gives you abundant show off material. So the question lies why it is a student tablet and is it affordable..? Regarding it being a student tablet Micromax calls it edutainment trying to integrate studies and entertainment. Pearson, Everonn, Vriti will be providing the educational content including video lectures. The entertainment role will be played by BigFlix, Zynga, India Games. All in all it is a good product.
Price: 6,500 INR
The race in consumer electronics doesn’t has a finish line, it is all about who sells cheap. The BSNL tablet also launched with the same student-friendly purpose doesn’t score much with the youth of today. So I give it a B. The BSNL come with a 1 GHz processor and 256 MB RAM half of what Micromax offers. It runs on android 2.3, contains a LCD 7” screen and a primary camera of 0.3 MP.
Price: 3,499 INR
Reliance 3G Tablet
The Reliance Tab is incredibly expensive and it doesn’t offer much except 3G. It has a 7” screen, 512 MB RAM. It has a 2MP primary camera and a VGA secondary camera. It is like a guy who brags more than he knows. I give it a C.
Price: 12,999 INR
Education is becoming expensive day by day so are the aids to it but in some parts of the country there are kids who use a slate and chalk and sit beneath a tree trying to attain knowledge. Let’s not forget that we have responsibilities towards the society. Here we focus upon making cheaper tablets but we need to make more schools also. Progress is unachieved if it is not in all spheres and this lesson needs to be spread across the nation.
Rohit
Rohit currently heads the team at Gadgetronica. His interest in gadgets and technology is as old as mobile phones themselves. Rohit keeps on top of happenings in the consumer electronics segment in particular and tech world in general.