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

[hedwards]

Depends a great deal on the distro. I've been using Linux Mint and I've spent very little time trying to fix it, probably similar to how much time I've spent trying to fix Win 7.

OTOH, Arch, Gentoo and similar are aimed at people that are more interested in controlling their complete experience, and probably take more time to maintain.

Re:Race to the bottom

[SuricouRaven]

"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."

Major flamewar imminent! EVERYONE, GET TO THE BUNKER!

Re:Race to the bottom

[oakgrove]

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).

Speak for yourself. I use Linux because for me it is the better experience. Kind of like for Mac people, OSX is and for windows people, well, windows is. That's a very arrogant attitude you have there.

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

[roc97007]

Then... I have an idea -- why don't you go tell them that. Someone over there thinks there is a critical need for a device at that price point. It's easy for us first world residents to say they should be buying iPads instead without any appreciation at all for what life is like in that part of the world. The last time I was there, the houseboy slept on the floor in the hallway outside my hotel door, because it was more comfortable than his home. (I asked him.) Away from the cities, the great majority don't have access to any of the things you take for granted -- GPS, cell service, access to the internet. It's a totally different environment. *We* think you're a little nuts for camping outside the AT&T store in the rain waiting to replace your 4 with a 4s. People in *that* part of the world think you're batshit crazy.

Re:Race to the bottom

[symbolset]

Now would be a good time for you to propose a low-tech alternative to a cheap tablet that holds 20,000 books about the sciences, history, the arts - that promotes literacy and hygiene and medicine. It should include instructions for various good practices such as sustainable agriculture, clean well digging and sanitary sewage practices, mortuary and food preparation practices among other things - in native language or with a suitable translation engine. All subjects introductory to advanced in math, chemistry, biology, mechanical and electrical engineering and history must be included. It must contain enough information to be able to uplift an entire village out of the stone age and into the space age - in a 7" tablet form factor that can be hidden, trekked across the desert and charged by laying it in the sun.

Ideally this low-tech solution should weigh less than half a kilogram and cost less than $35 - durable and disposable enough to smuggle into or airdrop from drones into places like southern China, North Korea, India, the Phillipines and Arkanas.

What did you have in mind?

Re:Race to the bottom

[dakara]

Major flamewar imminent! EVERYONE, GET TO THE BUNKER!

Major flamewar imminent! EVERYONE, GET TO THE CHOPPA!
FTFY

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

[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!

366 MHz?

[0100010001010011]

Ha. You old people are so funny. You could never do anything real on a 366 MHz processor. I mean, like, the Android I got for christmas has at LEAST 1200 megahertzes. I bet they had at least that when they went to that moon or invented the awesome SR-71.

Who are these indian kids that would even get this. I would be soooo mad if someone got me this for christmas. Such a horrible gift. No one could ever even use it.

Let them have the original iPhone.

Re:366 MHz?

[Richard_J_N]

You make a good point. I always thought it rather a shame that the excellent GPE (for iPaq) never went anywhere - GPE (the gnome-palmtop-environment) ran really well on the 266 MHz CPUs of its day, and contained regular linux + busybox + X + Gtk + some applications. It fitted into 16 MB of flash and 32MB of RAM. Sadly nobody ever created the phone-peripheral to make this into a smartphone, and we ended up evolving backwards - making phones gradually more smart, instead of fitting a voice-modem to a pre-existing portable computer. As a result, Android is 7 years late, and an atrocious resource-hog. Meanwhile, we had a diversion for QTopia etc (on, for example, the Zaurus). Qt was so much slower than Gtk for embedded devices (though it was prettier if one prized beauty over speed), and the resulting systems were unusable.

Part of the problem with Android (and iPhone) is that they run a Java GUI rather than X/Gtk (thereby making them incompatible with all the old, and fast apps); the other problem is that most apps aren't GPL. The consequence of this is that there is no central package manager (with dependency resolution and shared libraries). So every single app has to bundle its own icons, its own copy of the libraries, and run in its own sandbox. This makes them far more bloated. I do like Android, but we could get at least 10x better performance out of it if the environment were better engineered.

You can easily demonstrate this to yourself: take a look at MenuetOS, which fits an OS + GUI + browser + media-player + editor + source-code on a single floppy!

Re:366 MHz?

[angiasaa]

I'm Indian you know.. Perhaps it does not occur to you, but there are people in this country who earn less in a year than you'd pay for a decent meal at a two star restraunt. There are millions of such people in fact. To say that the government agencies work hard to play this figure down, would be a gross understatement. But even though I live in a fairly prosperous patch of the country, living here since I was born, I have actually met such people.

In a country of over a billion people, with barely 0.4% of the population sucking up 90% of the money that floats around, it is a spectacular vision of neglect and sadness.

About 35% of the population of India lives below the poverty line. FYI, the poverty line translates to $6 US a year!
Sure, for you it would feel like a kick in the stomach to receive a device such as this for christmas, but trust me, kids who get this device here would literally be willing to sell their kidneys for the opportunity to have one of them.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not saying I love the device, just that there are loads of people who will. And not only will they love and enjoy it, they will actually get it to do stuff the rest of us never even dreamed possible on such a low-spec toy.

So if someone asks me to buy the device for myself, I'd tell them to go eat shit. But I would nevertheless be glad to see it go out into the market for those who would otherwise go completely deviceless. I think there's some honour in that somewhere, but I'm having trouble putting it into words. :) Forgive me.

Yes please.

[w0mprat]

Lord knows I have a million and one uses for cheap tablets. I could stick them to the back of the seats in the car, to shut up the kids in a long road trip. Stick one to my dashboard and connect it to a bluetooth ODB-II dongle. I would stick one to the front of the fridge to turn it into a new smart fridge. Hell, duct tape them to anything to smarten it up.

It would also make a hella good universal remote for the lounge.

Problem is now that tablets are spiffy high price gadgets with premium hardware and spiffy graphics that cost the same as a entry level laptop. I'd have one tablet to do all those things and have to carry it with me. Things will change radically when tablets really do become as cheap as they should be. Cheap enough and we'll start covering surfaces with them.

All the interface animations and physical metaphor graphics (brushed metal, wood grain - Apple's microsoft bob era design philosophy), but after a while it's no benefit and a small waste of your time and battery power every time you watch a 500ms transition animation. They just get in the way and in the end I'd rather have more battery life/response/cheaper hardware.

I really cannot wait to get my hands on a useful $99 or less tablet that actually doesn't look good, is rugged and doesn't have fancy graphics.

It Depends On Your Profit Margin and features

[LuxuryYacht]

Currently there are ARM Cortex A8 tablets with 7" LCD's using the $5.00 Allwinner A10 ARM soc on sale for ~120ea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCvef9IYX0o
http://tabletrepublic.com/forum/cortex-a8-allwinner-a10/

The actual cost to build them is around $60 ea