Submitted by “Nigeria’s Saheed Adepoju is a young man with big dreams. He is the inventor of the Inye, a tablet computer designed for the African market. According to the 29-year-old entrepreneur, his machine’s key selling point is its price – $350 opposed to around $700 for an iPad. He believes that, because of this, there is a big market for it in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa, particularly amongst students. He is also hoping to sell his tablet – which runs on the Google Android operating system – to the Nigerian government and plans to have at least one computer in each local government area.” Mobile phones have had a huge impact on Africa, so just imagine what tablets, with their larger screens and easier access to the web, can do. Amazing initiative.
…didn’t Google just release a tablet for $199?
There must be a hundred different tablets on the market priced under $250, or even under $100. And a hundred more in the $250-$350 range. Asus, Acer, Lenovo, Samsung, Archos, Toshiba…
Maybe they all suck, I don’t know.
If he compares it to the iPad, my guess is it would be the screensize of the iPad. Not the smaller screensize of the offering by Amazon or Google.
He says it’s an 8-inch device, so that is a critical pricing factor. Still, I’m seeing many 8″ – 10″ tablets advertised for $150 – $200.
So I still don’t think the pricing of the Inye tablet is anything special. Probably the OEMs didn’t give him much of a volume discount. Remember he only started with $60,000, and out of that had to come the hardware design, software customizations, and whatever other expenses.
One of my customers had me pick her up one of those 7 inch Cruz tablets and she’s quite happy with it. Sure its not HD like the iPad and it isn’t gonna set any speed records, but for the basics like web surfing and reading ebooks it does just fine.
Does anybody know what the monthly wage is in Nigeria? Because at $350 I have to wonder how many will actually be able to afford that. Hell you can buy Atom dual core netbooks for $100 cheaper than that and those give you full X86 compatibility and 8 hour plus battery life.
I just don’t see what the selling point is here, at $350 frankly he could have picked one of several COTS models and still made a nice bit of profit. A $350 price point certainly doesn’t sound like a reason to go DIY.
Whether or not this will be a win for Android depends on whether the tablet is any good.
I’ve seen a lot of well-intentioned Fandroids recommending cheap tablets as an alternative to an iPad. Only problem is that pretty much all of them (including the Kindle Fire) suck ass, so by recommending these things, you can be pretty much assured that any/all of the following things will happen:
1. They’re going to have a bad experience with it, and they’ll probably blame it on Android
2. They’ll tell all their friends about how horrible Android is, further entrenching the belief that Android is nothing but a laggy, fragmented piece of crap
3. It pretty much assures that if they do buy another tablet, it’ll probably be running iOS.
Moral to the story? It’s better for people to buy an iPad than a craptastic Android tablet. Sure, there are some great Android tablets out there, but don’t try to sell people on the cheap shit, unless it’s actually worthwhile (like the Nexus 7), because doing so causes more harm than good in the end. That is, of course, assuming you’re not trying to make people hate Android
I think the iPad is more suited for the western way of living.
In Africa other things than consuming media are more important and having a device that doesn’t require an app store is more usefull.
Africa isn’t one of Apple’s biggest regions of attention, precense or market value.
Right, but this isn’t an Android vs iPad debate. This is a cheap-ass, barely-functional, will probably die in 3 months Android tablet vs iPad debate
Not to say that the tablet in question is as bad as the other bottom-of-the-barrel Android tablets, but if it is, better for it not to exist at all. If it’s more along the lines of the Nexus 7 though, it should be alright.
Except the Nexus 7 costs only $250. So for $350 I’d expect something significantly superior.
Actually $199 with a $25 credit to Google Play for the 8 GB model, so kinda sorta $174.
Yesterday I ordered this for my son, a CS major who has been developing Android apps on his older Nexus for a while. It arrived this morning, less than 24 hours after my order, with standard 2-day shipping no less.
It turned on, synced to wifi, and took off like a startled cheetah. My iPad is looking rather antiquated at the moment.
That’s not about quality that’s about availability. And yes it sounds way too much, in indeia they have a less then 100$ tablets.
Not to say top android devices are as good as it gets…
Looked pretty decent from the video.
But the Nexus 7 is a substantial improvement over the Kindle Fire.
Also, the Nexus 7 does not require an app store; it can be set to allow apps from any source to be installed (unlike either the iPad or the Kindle Fire).
What android tablet cheaper than the nexus would anyone in their right minds suggest?
I think you may have had a point before the nexus, but now… not really.
But true to facts, I still haven’t come up with a use for a tablet made by anyone at any price range.
Tablets may not fit any of your use cases, but they fit a lot of mine.
They make good readers, for example. My company provides both Safari and Books24x7 subscriptions, and I do a lot of technical (and some pleasure) reading on my iPad far more comfortably than on my laptop, netbook, or phone (I’ve read books on all 3). It’s also lighter and more flexible than a paper Bible.
Better for work emails and such than a Blackberry (too small) or laptop (too bulky) for my tastes.
My dad and I actually set it on the table between our chairs last fall to watch several college football games that weren’t on TV. A little small, but far better than the radio. (This is one of the few areas where a 10″ has a definite advantage for me over a 7″.)
I also took notes during general sessions of PyCon 2012 on it, as it’s far lighter than my laptop (which I needed for technical sessions, since iPad lacks decent Python support). I’ve taken notes in other venues as well.
And some games just work better with touch than with a mouse, such as the standard Angry Birds (though I play that most often on my N900).
I guess a few other people have found similar benefit to tablets, as well, since Android and iOS are now approaching Windows in the overall consumer computing market. Happily, it’s not just a Windows world any longer.
But if none of these fit you, then viva la difference!
Reading books and comics was one of the primary reasons for why I wanted a tablet; I do prefer real paper over electronic displays, but a 10″ tablet simply is SO much more comfortable for reading than a laptop, desktop or a phone that it was a total no-brainer. With electronic reading devices there’s the upside compared to paper books that that you can carry your whole collection with you wherever you go.
Too bad that e-paper devices, those with their display appearing similar to real paper (newsprint paper, at least), really got quite inexpensive only when …inexpensive “full” tablets are also showing up.
Oh well, they’re still nice in their own way, maybe carrying both will work out (still quite convenient, in a shoulder bag; both together still no heavier, no larger that just one medium book)
Well, you could also have as a goal to make people hate all current tablets, regardless of what the OS is, and ask for such things as better input devices as big fingers on a water-sensitive surface, desktop Windows-like full OS support for more than five years, user-replaceable batteries… or quality offerings below laptop pricing, since tablets functionally cannot do as much as a laptop in their current form.
Either OS and device manufacturers admit that current tablets are just big PMPs like Archos used to make 10 years ago, and they reduce the price accordingly (this is old news, so it should be cheap), or they advertise the thing as a shiny potential desktop replacement and have to offer at least the same quality of service that desktop have had for years. But they shouldn’t have it both ways.
Edited 2012-07-21 06:11 UTC
$350 “low cost” computer with all parts sourced from china.
The entrepeurship is good. But it really is not cheap and it really is not home built.
Edited 2012-07-20 22:18 UTC
7″ Android tablets with ICS similar specifications sell for as little as $80 in China.
India is building a $35 tablet. A similar tablet is built by Archos and sold for less than $200. But $200 is very expensive for most people living in a third world country.
It is true than his tablet is cheaper than an iPad but compared with similar products, it is not better and very expensive.
I’m sceptical about this product, its expensive and a young entrepreneur is likely to fail in Nigeria’s famous corruption, or become part of it – on the other hand Nigeria is a huge market so I wish him luck.
However, in most of Africa more people are connected to the world through mobile network rather than landlines. Landline internet is expensive (in much of Africa) if you can get it. So it is like that the continent will be connected to the net through mobile networks. iPads are way too expensive and although many Africans would aspire to such toys, this is in the realm of government ministers most, will connect through cheaper android devices
Edited 2012-07-21 08:15 UTC
He most likely is part of it already, part of the upper class, the aristocracy – nobody who isn’t wouldn’t have ^Alb40,000 just given by parents, after pitching such idea to them.
Overall, weird that BBC pitches up something like this… even if that’s only the work of some regional office and/or, well, silly season http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4198990.stm
Sometimes taxes on these kinds of products are exorbitant outside the West. I’m wondering what they’re like in Nigeria. $350 might be a bargain not just vs. iPad but any tablet available there (the world is not flat yet).
Also, his parents gave him 40,000 quid to start up a company? A real Horatio Alger right there!
[quote]Saheed Adepoju: I pitched the idea to my parents, who gave me ^Alb40,000 to start with[/quote]
..okay
^aEUR| every 10 seconds, it prompts you for your credit card to secure a $10M cash transfer from a bank in Switzerland…
If the apple is a world normal price then anyone there ought to be able to buy a $99 tablet.
There are some pretty “decent” chinsese oem tablets available in the 100-200$ (retail) range with similar specs. They come in a number of “brands” but are basically the same save for the logo.
I actually have one of those, a 10″ allwinner A10 based (specs here – http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a10/ ) tablet with capacitive screen. Bought it on a whim to try my hand at android development.
The quality and performance is not bad for the price. Sure it’s not as fast as most current multi core tablets or as elegant but it cost me ~170 usd, and you can buy a 7″ version of that for just around 120$ where I live. 350$ is way too much IMHO.