There’s Gonna Be a New Cheapest Tablet in Town

by Burke Speaker | December 18, 2013 11:47 am

Think you got a holiday bargain on that tablet you bought? Think again. The cheapest tablet to debut will be a jaw-dropping $38.

[1]The Datawind Ubislate tablet will be available early next year — likely sometime in January. When it debuts, it will be the cheapest tablet on the market.

It’s a bit too late for holiday shoppers but it would be literally the deal of the year before the year is even getting started.

Of course, the tablet will not win any awards for innovation — it is simply not designed for high-tech game use or HD movie watching. It’s simple: a 1 GHz Cortex A8 processor, 512 MB of RAM, a 7-inch 800 x 480 pixel display, 4 GB of storage, and WiF.

And let’s be clear: it cannot compete with other tablets in its technology offerings.

But consider its price compared to others: Apple (AAPL[2]) iPad Mini just starts at $399, Google (GOOG[3]) Nexus 7 begins at $229, and even the so-far cheapest price is for the kid’s version of the Samsung (SSNLF[4]) Galaxy Tab for $199.

Others — such as the Amazon (AMZN[5]) Kindle Fire (upwards of $169) and Microsoft Surface (MSFT[6]) (upwards of $300) are also still expensive compared to the $38 bargain of the new cheapest tablet on the market (via Minyanville[7]).

The UbiSlate, a fully functioning tablet that uses Google’s Android operating system, was designed to bring Internet affordability to the masses in India, and now it’s about to launch in the US and the UK. Datawind sees a market for an affordable computing device among lower-income consumers and cash-strapped students, here and in Great Britain. The $38 model is at the low-end of the brand’s line. Other models are available, all the way up to a souped-up version for $149.

….in India, about 87% lack Internet access. Datawind was created to meet a challenge from the Indian government to change that, and the company’s greatest growth is likely to be there and in other emerging nations.

Will the cheapest tablet work in the US?

There is certainly a market in the US as well for this cheapest tablet – for parents who want a tablet for kids but are worried about it breaking or being ruined. At $38, a dropped and waterlogged tablet would not be a financial crush.

If you look at the cheap tablets out on the market today, the UbiSlate seems to still be a deal.

Walmart (WMT[8]) sells cheap tablets — many discounted during the holidays to less than $100 (most running Android Jelly Bean).

But UbiSlate still beats them as the cheapest tablet.

The closets in price for cheap tablets is a $59 model from budget brand Nextbook, regularly priced at $79.

Consider it a holiday bargain — after the holidays.

Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2013/12/cheapest-tablet-ubislate-datawind-appl-ipad/

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