$45 Tablet Computer - The Price of Things to Come?

34 replies
I saw this on the TV news last night:

India to launch $45 tablet computer

If it ever makes it to the west at that sort of price - although I doubt it will be exactly $45 - it could give some computer manufacturers a run for their money.
#$45 #computer #price #tablet #things
  • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
    Well, the Tata Nano didn't kill the car market in the West...
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    • Profile picture of the author JB
      Originally Posted by Istvan Horvath View Post

      Well, the Tata Nano didn't kill the car market in the West...
      On the other hand, the Tato Nano wasn't the type of product you could buy on Ebay and have delivered cheaply within days.
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  • Profile picture of the author erob
    I've seen some tablets for around $100 bucks in stores like Kmart from time to time. I often wonder how good the functions are. They are a not ipads, but made by other compaines.
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    • Profile picture of the author QuickSurf
      Not really, even at $45 you get what you pay for, small 7" screen, limited capabilities, pretty poor battery life, internal tech that's behind... I mean 256 mb ram, when common phones now alone have 1GB Ram. Definitely get what you pay for, won't have the polish and capabilities of the better Android and iPad tablets.
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  • Profile picture of the author lakshaybehl
    Originally Posted by spearce000 View Post

    I saw this on the TV news last night:

    India to launch $45 tablet computer

    If it ever makes it to the west at that sort of price - although I doubt it will be exactly $45 - it could give some computer manufacturers a run for their money.
    Its purpose it to bring technology to the poorer sections of the Indian society...

    Or at least that is what I understand.

    Besides, it's too hard to get your hands on one. At least for now we can safely say it is not going to be found on Walmart Shelves.

    -Lakshay
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    • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
      Originally Posted by lakshaybehl View Post

      Its purpose it to bring technology to the poorer sections of the Indian society...
      Related to this my favourite story from India is about the hole in the wall...
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    • Profile picture of the author JackPowers
      Originally Posted by lakshaybehl View Post

      Its purpose it to bring technology to the poorer sections of the Indian society...

      Or at least that is what I understand.

      Besides, it's too hard to get your hands on one. At least for now we can safely say it is not going to be found on Walmart Shelves.

      -Lakshay
      Interesting, but isn't $45 quite a lot of money for the poor of India?
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      • Profile picture of the author apoorv.parijat
        Originally Posted by JackPowers View Post

        Interesting, but isn't $45 quite a lot of money for the poor of India?
        For the extremely poor, yes, but I don't think this is targeted to those people.

        It'll obviously make it more accessible to a lot more people, because of the price point but it how the market picks it up remains to be seen. It is a catch 22 situation though.

        From the reviews I saw on the television, those who got their hands on it were not too enthusiastic or positive about it. We'll see. :-)
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        • Profile picture of the author seasoned
          Originally Posted by apoorv.parijat View Post

          For the extremely poor, yes, but I don't think this is targeted to those people.

          It'll obviously make it more accessible to a lot more people, because of the price point but it how the market picks it up remains to be seen. It is a catch 22 situation though.

          From the reviews I saw on the television, those who got their hands on it were not too enthusiastic or positive about it. We'll see. :-)
          Let's put this in perspective. I heard indian avg=$8000/year. With NO taxes, that is $666.66/month, or about $21.50 a day. $45 is over 2 days wages!

          Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author webapex
    More damage to the One Laptop Per Child Project which already was setback when intel came out with a competing project after they had the audacity to use cheaper processors.

    For $199, you can give a laptop to a child in the developing world.

    These hand crank generator powered, networked computers, are in some cases the only source of light for some families.
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  • Profile picture of the author JeanneLynn
    I bought a nice HP Touchpad (32gb) tablet for $150. They had the 16gb one for $99. There are good deals out there. I have to admit that I'm not too crazy about tablets. I like my netbook way better.
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  • Profile picture of the author davelucas1
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    • Profile picture of the author seasoned
      Originally Posted by davelucas1 View Post

      Its okay for $45 but keep in mind that this thing has NO processing power (660 Mhz processor)!
      Well, the processor clock doesn't mean THAT much. And MY first computer had a 1.023Mhz CPU. That is NOT a misprint! And $45 is WAY too cheap. I don't know WHAT is happening, but it must be subsidized or something.

      GEEEZ, I have seen some tablets selling DIRT CHEAP here! Granted they start at almost twice the price, but the clock is twice as fast, they are dual core, and seem pretty nice. Still, nvidia apparently has a bug in that processor and a new version that is supposed to be already out is twice as fast, has more features, and uses less power, and at the SAME clock speed, by the way. So I am waiting.

      STILL, MOST people pay 5 to 10 times as much! 5 being the average, and 10 being for higher end ones like ipad.

      As for the tata? Is it even legal in the US? There are a LOT of laws that make such things a TOUGH sell. I have heard of cases where they had to DOUBLE the cost of some vehicles to satisfy the laws.

      Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author aneilfever
    Tata Nano sized a beautiful shares in the car market, while this will happen in tablet niche as the $45 tablet is truly cheap. I hold my view.
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  • Profile picture of the author onegoodman
    I don't think I would pay $45 for this tablet when I can pay $20 or $30 more and get much better tablet from china.

    This is beside when nook & Kindle are as cheap as $200 and $250. I would prefer to pay for something that can actually get fixed when it is broken
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  • Profile picture of the author affordableweb
    hardware is cheap and only getting cheaper. disposable tablets are the future
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  • I think this would probably be good for the children's educational market, $45 is pretty cheap for a tablet and I think it would become an essential item in every schools.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bballer1
    It's good that there will be products like this that would bring technology to the less privileged. I don't think this would affect the other tablets in the market as this low cost
    product is targeted to a different market segment and the product features would cater to this segment only.
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  • Profile picture of the author IstaylPinoy
    There are already China Tablets that's way better these Indian Tablet counterpart. Their tablet PC already comes with a 512 MB RAM and a 1GHZ PRocessor and is already expandable to 32GB thru a Micro SD. Sure, it does cost a lot more than the $45 Indian Tablet. I have several models already cost me around $60 each and still it's cheaper compared to the high-end tablet PCs in the market. The web browsing is very decent. The only downside is it will run slow as you clog your tablet's memory with loads and loads of apps. And the battery also drains rapidly. Well, judging by the price of the Indian Tablet, it could be worth a try.
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  • Profile picture of the author WakondaMarketing
    Bringing technology to people who aren't financially privileged can bring the world more understanding of how technology can turn one's life into an easy highway.
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    • Profile picture of the author seasoned
      Originally Posted by WakondaMarketing View Post

      Bringing technology to people who aren't financially privileged can bring the world more understanding of how technology can turn one's life into an easy highway.
      You're DREAMING! I have a LOT of experience with poorer people in a LITERATE culture, etc... getting computers. HECK, kids tend to play games! Poor people also don't use them for much.

      In a country like India where some people AREN'T literate, and many that ARE literate are literate in languages that may not be supported with different castes, etc... things are likely to be LESS meaningful.

      HOW do you figure they will use them? MANY things people here might suggest really WON'T apply there.

      In retrospect, I am GLAD computers weren't really viable for lower grades when I went to school. Teachers might have depended on THEM. At least I won't be at a loss to do work when the power goes out.

      Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author ronaldmd
    Usually cheap electronics made of cheap components. Just wait couple months, maybe it'll be broken. It's not worth it, better buy more expensive electronics with better quality.
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    • Profile picture of the author Tony Marriott
      While clearly there may be some correlation between price and quality when comparing different products it is far from clear cut.

      Brand ads value (cost) to a product and does not always mean more quality.

      There are different pricing structures for different countries. HP, Dell, Apple, Samsung (and any major manufacturer you care to mention) do this. If they sell the same product in India as the UK it will be at two completely different prices. In fact Europe/US have different price structures.

      Start shipping India bought laptops to US or UK to make a profit on the price different and see how quickly the company lawyers gather.

      That is completely different than an Indian or China company producing their own products of course.

      I have been looking to find a small tablet PC and I have to say the range of spec/quality available to pretty astounding. By that I mean from the extremes of absolute rubbish to pretty impressive. It's not a product you want to buy on impulse for sure.
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  • Profile picture of the author jade69
    256 MB of RAM?? You cannot run even Firefox properly...
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  • Profile picture of the author vishalduggal
    LOL! Great Amazon Kindle alternative for reading ebooks. Don't expect too much from it.
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    • Profile picture of the author apoorv.parijat
      Nah, I wouldn't really pay a lot of attention to it's price.

      It isn't by any means the price of things to come. You can build a $45 tablet computer but you're going back to 2003's specs (which they did).

      This one is aimed at poorer sections of the Indian society, to enable their children to get access to technology, etc. It isn't the future of pricing, at all. Plus, the touch of that device is a joke. I didn't expect a lot anyways.

      However, if it is able to do what it aims to (make it more accessible), it would be a worthy development.

      Originally Posted by Istvan Horvath View Post

      Related to this my favourite story from India is about the hole in the wall...
      There's a video on TED's channel on Youtube by Dr. Mitra on the same topic. Very interesting.
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  • Profile picture of the author spearce000
    Lots of interesting replies! Personally, I feel now the bar has been lowered to that price point, other companies will compete to make a better $45 tablet. Moore's Law etc.

    I think this will be great news for e-book publishers and online newspapers.

    Just my two pence!
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  • Profile picture of the author seobro
    Back in the 80's I was over at AT&T and I said that in the future you can get a unix laptop for under $500 dollars and they laughed at me. Well, I can buy a Linux laptop for $199 right now. The future is now. Yeah, I also can get a calculator at the dollar store for $1 that does a square root even. Expect in the future lower prices.
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  • Profile picture of the author smithhsteve
    I've seen some tablets for around $45 bucks in stores like Kmart from time to time. I often wonder how good the functions are. They are a not ipads, but made by other compaines.
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  • Profile picture of the author Vlad Romanov
    There are 60$ tablets online... If you are looking for a cheaply made, bulky, low battery life, low ram hardware, be my guest. Did I also mention they rip the android market in chineese so all you get is some random crap in chineese that barely works?

    I would rather pay for a tablet that has good functionality and good software, but the option of paying 60$ is there
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  • Profile picture of the author Osman_M
    There is always going to be companies which produce the same product at a lower price point. Its the easiest to gain competitive advantage. However, will this tablet hurt ipad sales, I highly doubt it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Eddie Titan
    Originally Posted by spearce000 View Post

    I saw this on the TV news last night:

    India to launch $45 tablet computer

    If it ever makes it to the west at that sort of price - although I doubt it will be exactly $45 - it could give some computer manufacturers a run for their money.
    Even if it did make it to the west at that price, you get what you pay for. I would not be interested in buying a device that will not perform as well as other devices (not as efficient).

    However it looks like this device is targeting a different market. If it can help rural areas in other countries gain access to information over the internet than I hope the device is released and performs as advertised.
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  • Profile picture of the author dkbiz92
    the one downfall is quality. I believe it will never last long in the american market where people expect everything to run fast and smooth.
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