Defects may prod government to discontinue Aakash tablet

India's dream of writing a success story with the debutant, low-cost tablet, Aakash, may be on its way out. A host of complaints filed in by Aakash tablet users, across several consumer forums, have been revealing that a lot of work has been left undone by the makers.

Riddled with defects?

A certain user shared his first-hand experience with the Aakash tablet. He stated, "I got the delivery of aakash tablet. As instructed i charged for 4 hrs and then tried to switched on the tablet it showed only main screen, we could not do anything futher, it was on only few minutes then it s turned off, again we charged for 4 hours as customer care instruction but its not switching on again, As for as i am concerned its not user friendly, and very bad sensitivity, The customer care guys told me I will get a call within 2 days for next steps but still I have not got any call. Most of the times their lines are busy. I emailed on their customer support email id but no reply from there. I am very disappointed that a brand new TABLET after paying full amount in advance and its starting also still they dont care about their customer. Kindly help me to get the tablet replaced. They dont have any system such as ticket numbers or complaint nos. On phone they just take the complaint and I dont think they even note it down." 

Alongwith the shortcomings in the device, itself, which they attribute to defective OS, poor battery retention capacity, among others; users have been disappointed with the customer service provided.

The Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry are now having second thoughts about giving the letter of credit (LC) to Datawind, after it began receiving a volley of complaints from the user community, who stated that the device was riddled with defects. Several are already on their way to dumping it, too. So, while the government is toying around with the idea of dumping these defected devices to the rural villages, talks about shelving the entire project, altogether have been popping up, too. The report also points to the fact that the tablet may get shelved, owing to the bad performance; if not that, Mukesh Ambani-led RIL would possibly join forces with Datawind to launch 4G services in India.

Whatever the case may be, the run of the Aakash tablet in India is surely going through a rough patch, with its future looking bleak.