$35 Android tablet coming to Philadelphia schools

The Indian-born $35 Ubislate Android tablet may be headed for a Philadelphia school system trial run if Financial Express reports prove true. This 7-inch device has shown up across the sea as the "Akash" tablet and was and continues to be manufactured by Canadian OEM DataWind. Thus far the tablet has been regulated (or priced, mind you) for schools alone, ranging between $35 and $50 for students in select areas of India over the past couple of years.

The report this week is that low-end manufacturer Wilco Electronics, roughly on par with DataWind for their quality output, is in talks with the latter company to attain license to create the tablet themselves for the USA. Their intent will be to distribute the tablet to Philadelphia schools at first as well as "under-served communities" throughout the area. The possibility of this happening comes from Wilco vice president and FCC Diversity Committee member Brigitte Daniel who has expressed interest in such a program.

This tablet is certainly not one which has a lot of potential outside of this exact situation, it running a single-core 700MHz Cortex 8 processor and using the 2-year-old Android 2.2 Froyo out of the box. That said, replacing $100 Texas Instruments calculators could be a distinct possibility in our tech-forward-thinking society here in the USA.

Would you consider purchasing a $35 low-end 7-inch tablet computer for your child for school if given the option?

[via Android Community]