tablet war

the battle of tablets are in full swing! Last year, DataWind in association with the Government of India came out with a 7 inch Android tablet for students. Named Aakash, the tablet costs Rs 2,999 in the market; while its subsidised rate is just Rs 2,250. Aakash, which was hailed as the cheapest tablet in the world, was projected as revolutionary and was talked about the world over. In fact, its makers got lakhs of pre-orders. Before the euphoria could die down, though, public sector telecom operator BSNL has come out with an extremely low cost tablet of its own. Manufactured by Noida based Pantel Technologies, the Penta IS701R tablet has WiFi and is priced at Rs 3,499.
The tablet market is clearly getting divided among the have ("I have an iPad") to haven't ("I can't afford an iPad, hence the cheapest is better"). The marketers are missing the concept of "disposable gadgets" (use it for a year and renew it to a newer one) ! Today, like other products, the gadgets have very less life (before its faded into the "uncool" category) and almost no resale value. The marketers should en-cash it and sell the "cheap" gadgets as "disposable one" rather than calling it as cheap / for poor!