Datawind has launched its UbiSlate 7Ci, aka Aakash 2, in the UK bearing a price tag of just £29.99 undercutting all other white box as well as branded budget-friendly tablets right in time for the holiday season.
£29.99 doesn’t get you a get deal when it comes to specifications as the UbiSlate 7Ci packs lowly hardware, which even Chinese vendors are not using nowadays. The UbiSlate 7Ci is a 7-inch tablet that packs a 1GHz Cortex A8 processor, 512MB RAM, and a measly 4GB onboard storage. The 7-inch TFT capacitive touchscreen has 800 x 480p resolution – something that can be considered borderline acceptable and certainly not good. The tablet runs Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich and will come pre-loaded with educational apps and games.
Datawind has also announced other version of its UbiSlate including the £50 3G-enabled UbiSlate 7C+ and £130 UbiSLate 3G7, which comes with a whole year of basic mobile internet.
The UbiSlate 7Ci, which was sold in India as Aakash 2, wasn’t well received and a battery life of just 4 hours is definitely not what one would be looking at even after spending a rock bottom £29.99.
How much success will the UbiSlate 7Ci garner in a country where branded yet budget-friendly tablets like Tesco Hudl, Argos MyTablet and Aldi LifeTab have already made a mark for themselves is definitely a question worth pondering upon. However, given that Tesco has managed to sell well over 300,000 tablets since its launch and Aldi LifeTab was sold out within 24 hours of its launch, UK does have a liking for budget tablets and Datawind may have a bumper Christmas waiting for it.
