Creating the World's Cheapest Tablet

Back in October, we discussed news that India had launched a $35 tablet. Now, JohnWiney writes with a story in the Globe and Mail about the device's development. Quoting: "Part of the difficulty in engineering such a device is that the underlying goal—that its final price should be within the means of those who can’t afford high-priced tablets—dictates crucial engineering and component decisions. A piece of high-impact-resistant glass, such as the touchscreen face of an iPad, can cost upward of $20. Datawind’s touchscreen glass, which the company had engineered down the street, costs less than $2, though it won’t allow for luxuries like pinch-and-zoom finger swiping. There were also compromises on processing power: Datawind’s 366 megahertz processor costs less than $5, a fraction of the $15-plus price tag on the chips that power iPads and other comparable tablets. And while the decision to run Google’s free Android mobile operating system on the gadget saves money, it requires coders to dig deep into the Linux kernel that underpins the software, tweaking it until it runs smoothly on Datawind’s weaker processor."

Comments

Race to the bottom

[Overly Critical Guy]

Unfortunately, a race to the bottom will always result in a lower-quality experience. It doesn't seem worth it for the compromises made. Amusingly, devices like this get figured into the amorphous statistic of "Android marketshare" in countless forum operating system arguments.

Re:Race to the bottom

[garcia]

You're posting this on a forum where a good number of readers are obsessed with Linux. It's not that Linux isn't a great OS (I use it for server-side stuff) but it certainly doesn't provide the polished overall experiences that Microsoft or Apple do.

There is a breakeven point for many people. Those people who are happy to pay $200 for a machine and spend the time getting it to run well with something like Linux even at the expense of a better experience which may cost 6x as much (Apple).

So, if someone cannot or is unwilling to pay $500 for an iPad but may be willing to pay less than $100, it's going to give a much better experience than nothing.

Re:Race to the bottom

[CohibaVancouver]

It doesn't seem worth it for the compromises made

So if you're an Indian for whom an iPad costs the equivalent of a year's salary you should go without altogether, rather than have the best-in-breed? Sounds like a plan - Since I can't afford a Porsche I'll stick with walking.

Re:Race to the bottom

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends heavily on your hardware, too

Same thing with popular proprietary systems too like OSX and Android. People don't seem to have a problem with the concept of just buying hardware that these operating systems are intended for so why not do that for Linux without having to make an issue out of it? And, yes, I know Android is Linux.

Re:Race to the bottom

[roc97007]

> You're assuming that any device is necessarily better than no device.

Um, no. He's assuming that the Datawind tablet is better than not being able to use the applications the tablet provides. I know this is hard to understand, but if you need to run an application to help you plant your crops, a device that doesn't happen to have a trendy metal bezel and won't play Angry Birds is still better than not planting your crops.

It's not about the device, it's about access to content.

Re:Race to the bottom

[couchslug]

For people with NO alternative experience, even weak devices can change their lives.

Would you rather have NO computer, or a Celeron 500 with 256MB RAM? Those specs don't even merit a dumpster dive nowadays in the US, but don't forget what you can do with one.

Re:Race to the bottom

[PopeRatzo]

I know this is hard to understand, but people already have an application that helps them plant their crops. They've had it for generations. It's called asking the local farmers how to do it.

I don't think you realize how much more productive the farmers in the US became after they were able to get their hands on the bulletins and advisory pamphlets that the Department of Agriculture put (and still puts) out. Or how much science goes into running a farm. How much information is required for successful farming.

Apparently, you're not familiar with the business of farming and how much of it depends on an up-to-the-minute awareness of market conditions, weather conditions. economic conditions, and forecasts. Even their bank balance.

Having access to a bit of technology that allows them access to a library of information and online data could definitely mean the difference between a farmer making it or failing utterly.

Why don't you let the farmers decide whether or not they need the trendy metal bezel and SIRI or not?

And yes, any device that allows farmers to ask farmers all over the country "how to do it" is better than having them asking only the local farmers. They could get information about pest control, get help with crop diseases and learn about various types of fertilizers. Indeed, the communications capabilities of a basic tablet could help them ask the local farmers and maybe participate in discussions with ALL the local farmers.

I guess you think they all just drive their tractors or mules and meet up down by the barn with hayseeds 'twixt their teeth to tell each other how to plant a potato.

I don't care if they're sustenance farmers in rural India or a Wisconsin dairy farmer with a few thousand heads. They're using tons of data and having access to that data in the form of a handheld tablet could be a real boon for them. Farmers here in the US are probably among the small businesses that make the greatest use of the Internet and personal computing technology. For some of those farmers, the Internet is a literal lifeline.

Re:Race to the bottom

[hairyfeet]

Well I think a lot of that was caused by Linux developers and advocates being frankly stupidly low with regards to system requirements. How many "Dumpster dive a great Linux box!" and "Save a PC from the dump, just use Linux!" articles have we seen? Well by putting their system reqs at frankly ludicrously low levels what you ended up with is OEMs slapping Linux on machines that frankly would have had trouble running Win98 without hanging and gave Linux a worse view from those that don't know about specs and just look at price. i mean a 366Mhz CPU? Geez we were throwing out faster chips than that a decade ago! It reminds me of those junkers Walmart used to sell with Linux that had worse specs than what you'd find in a dumpster.

Sure its nice that you can run Linux on some POS that used to run Win95 but that doesn't mean its gonna be a pleasant experience with the modern web. This thing might be fine for an ebook reader but i shudder to think what trying to surf the bling bling heavy web will be like, even without flash but just dealing with all the heavy JavaScript out there with a 366Mhz CPU, I bet its like trying to load modern web pages on a 300 baud modern...eek! of course many will just say its because Android or Linux sucks and hurt the rep when its just the OS is being squeezed into woefully underpowered hardware.

Re:Race to the bottom

[chrb]

it certainly doesn't provide the polished overall experiences that Microsoft or Apple do.

Nice switch. The Linux variant being discussed by the OP was Android, which is by all accounts pretty polished (the latest version in particular has been widely praised), but your then go on to define your argument against Android based on desktop Linux distributions. Desktop Linux and Android are not the same, so this line of reasoning is completely invalid. I could go on and point out that many people don't care about visual bling, and how it's taken years for Windows and OS X to incorporate support for simple concepts like software repositories that Linux distributions have had for over a decade (do the Windows and Mac app store repositories even do dependency tracking across packages yet?) Linux isn't even a desktop. If you're going to say that something isn't polished, at least tell people what you are talking about - Gnome, KDE, Xfce?

Re:Race to the bottom

[pimpsoftcom]

The last thing they need is bibles. They need STEM education; a bible is antithetical to this.

Re:Race to the bottom

[mcrbids]

Well by putting their system reqs at frankly ludicrously low levels what you ended up with is OEMs slapping Linux on machines that frankly would have had trouble running Win98 without hanging and gave Linux a worse view from those that don't know about specs and just look at price. i mean a 366Mhz CPU?

To be fair, I have a 400 Mhz P3 that has performed admirably for a decade or so with effectively zero downtime as a dev server and network monitor for a production server cluster. To say that you can't get significant use from such comparatively scant resources is simply wrong. I manage my expectations... I am not expecting a responsive, HD flash video experience, nor am I expecting to render expressive graphics with a "snappy" experience.

Look at this as a research project: how do you get a good experience at a reduced power level? You aren't going to get a good experience at 366 Mhz, but given just two Moore's law doublings, you are up to 1.5 GHz, roughly in line with today's midline tablet processors. That's just 4 to 6 years away, depending on how you interpret Moore's law.

The lessons learned today will result in a much better experience for future users of both "low end" and more mainstream processors.

Re:Race to the bottom

[hairyfeet]

You wanna feel young again? My first "PC" didn't even have an OS, just a BASIC interpreter! Look up the specs on a Commodore VIC sometime and be amazed anybody could do anything with the thing, hell a $1 watch at Fred's has more power than the VIC had.

This is why I say everyone should take the time and just be amazed at what we have. I mean my fricking netbook has dual cores, 80 stream processors, 8Gb of RAM and a 320Gb HDD and I paid less for it than I did for the VIC minus the tape drive! The desktop I'm typing this on has SIX cores, 8Gb of RAM, 3 fricking Tb of HDD space, 800 stream processors for video, a 1600x900 widescreen and cost less than the 386SX with a lousy 20Mb HDD which was my first IBM PC compatible! Hell you could easily fit my first 5 HDDs into the RAM I have on EITHER system!

So I think as we are about to send another year into the pass folks ought to just take a minute and be amazed at what Moore's Law has given us. I mean when even my 71 year old dad is running a quad, I have a dual core in the closet for a spare "just in case' and even my kid's hand me downs have truly insane levels of graphics power you really need to stop a minute and just be amazed at how far we've come in terms of power in such a short time. I mean when i started out a "laptop" would have been the Osbourne or Commodore Portables and they would have busted your knees if you tried setting them 20 pounders on your lap, not to mention the need for a REALLY long extension cord if you wanted to go anywhere with it and i hope you had great eyesight for that 3 inch screen, now I enjoy 6 hours of HD video on a charge on a machine that just weighs 3 pounds and only cost $350? that's nuts!

This is great

[Metricmouse]

It it is imho a basic human right to compute, now a lot more people can.