Aakash 2 to launch in August with ICS for Rs. 2,263

It looks like the Aakash 2 is all set to launch sometime in August for a price tag of Rs. 2,263. We did hear about the tablet launching sometime next month, but as it turns out, August seems to be the date when it will finally arrive. Not only that, the tablet will also launch with Ice Cream Sandwich onboard at a very aggressive price of Rs. 2,263.

Coming in August

Reports have been quoting HRD Minister, Kapil Sibal as saying that the tablet is now ready for release and that it is packed with more features and enhanced speed. The talk about Android 4.0 onboard started sometime in April when Suneet Singh Tuli, CEO of Datawind stated in an e-mail that the Aakash 2 tablet will have 2GB flash storage, an 800Mhz processor and 256 MB RAM, which should be enough to handle Ice Cream Sandwich. The Aakash 2 is a significant upgrade over the original Aakash tablet. The initial version of the tablet had a 7-inch resistive touchscreen, which reportedly failed to even respond to the touch on its screen. It ran Android 2.2 and a slower 366MHz processor, based on an older ARM architecture. The Aakash 2 tablet is likely to be replaced by a successor, which will have a dual-core Cortex - A9 processor by this year end, which is being used by most of the tablets now.

Datawind were the makers of the initial version of the Aakash tablet, and along with IIT-Rajasthan, they took up the task of manufacturing the Aakash tablet in India for the masses. However, soon after, it began facing a lot of criticism, since several users who had begun using the tablets began complaining of the tablet's poor build quality, less than satisfactory battery, among other things. Soon after, altercations between Datawind and IIT-Rajasthan began over a set of specifications, which the latter wanted to incorporate on the tablet. IIT-Rajasthan wanted the Aakash tablet to be water-proof, and include a set of some more military-style specifications, something which Datawind did not agree to, since they believed a humble tablet, like Aakash didn't need military-styled specifications. Soon, the project went into the hands of IIT-Bombay.

If Datawind can pull off this feat of running Ice Cream Sandwich smoothly on their tablets, then it most definitely would be something that other manufacturers would need to take notes from and try to give out updates for their mid-budget phones that use 800 MHz or more.