Sure, it was originally priced at $35, but students should be used to sudden price hikes by now.
The Indian government's Ministry of Human Development has made good on a promise from earlier this year to make an astoundingly cheap tablet computer available for students and rural Indians.
Engadget reports that the newly unveiled Aakash tablet, which comes in at $60.00 (Rs 2,999), is basically an Datawind Ubislate 7 running Froyo (Android), and packing a 366MHz Connexant CPU, 256MB of RAM, 2GB of storage and a 7-inch screen with 800 X 480 resolution. As expected from such a low-cost product, it's not a device designed for lengthy periods of uninterrupted use; the battery will last about 3 hours, long enough to take notes during classes or pass the time on one of India's infamous windy bus trips, but along with a 802.11 a/b/g Wi-Fi chip comes a GRPS modem able to connect to the internet via cellular service. So long as there's a cell phone tower nearby, even residents of India's isolated rural areas ought to be able to use it.
When initially announced over the summer, the tablet was set to cost $35.00, however, despite the massive percent price hike, it is still extremely affordable for millions that are otherwise priced out of portable computing devices. Currently, India has an extremely low population of Internet users, just under 12 percent of the population. Though extremely underpowered by comparison to iPad and its endless competitors, the tablet underscores the Indian government's commitment to heavily invest in the technological development of this still largely rural and deeply impoverished country.
+1 to that. Twelve percent of India is about half the population of the US. It's a decent number at best :\
That's just wrong. ...but it funny hell.