Notion Ink Adam - Doubts and Confusion Abound

Image by darkpollo via Flickr

It has been a long time since Notion Ink started on their journey to create that tablet of dreams. A tablet to rival even the mighty Apple iPad and the now immensely successful Samsung Galaxy tab.

Slowly the technical specifications started rolling in. And astounding they were! Dual core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, Pixel Qi display, HDMI ports, inbuilt Adobe AIR/Flash compatibility, Android 2.2 and beyond compatibility, etc.

The company was however very careful in what it released. I never found a single video of the tablet in action. Everything from the boot screen demo to app functions were 'custom made' videos. Even pictures of the tablet being posted were either immensely photoshopped or had serious typographical/grammatical errors (check out this screenshot posted yesterday). Although this was indeed making me suspicious, it didnt really dampen my spirits especially since its an Indian made tablet which hopefully would be much better and cheaper than its Apple and Android counterparts.

Yesterday, after long and long and extra long delays, Notion Ink finally opened their 'store' to pre orders. However thats when things started to go wrong, horribly wrong. Notion Ink had promised the Notion Ink "family" that it would open its doors first to them and then to the world, 6 hours later. Many many 'members' then commented on the blog that they hadnt received the notification mail even when they were part of the Notion Ink 'family'. Later when the store opened up for everyone, there were payment faults, error messages, payments getting failed etc. Notion Ink has admitted now that there was indeed a problem with the servers.

To add to the slew of problems was Notion Ink posted their terms and conditions and warranty policies which not just shocked many but also made Notion Ink Adam a contender for 'scamware of the year'. To be short and precise, Notion Ink will charge you for every single manufacturing fault of theirs even if its within the warranty period and will deduct the shipping charges from your pocket too! I cant remember the last time I came across such insane warranty policies. Oh wait, there's more. Notion Ink Adam will apparently ship from China! (Yea even I was WTFed when I first learnt about it) And so, you will have to shell out $50 for shipping plus import duties regardless of where you are located.

Compare this to the support system of Samsung which gives you Samsung warranty without any such weird preconditions and shipping issues. I really dont mind shelling out the extra $$$ to get the largest selling Android tablet. Notion Ink's business just seems way too fishy right now. What a shame!

The $35 Tablet

Image via Wikipedia

Yes, its no longer a rumour. There is infact a $35 tablet, waiting to be released to the masses. The minister for human resource and development (HRD), Kapil Sibal, was on Gadget Guru this week where he unveiled the cheapest tablet on the planet.

The tablet is apparently decently powered with 2GB of RAM and running Android. The touchscreen is (perhaps as expected) a resistive one. The OS isnt sluggish and thats mainly because of the hardware that has been put in.

And yeah, it gets better. In time, the minister hopes, due to rising competition and demand, the price of this tablet would come down to $10! Now when did one get last hold of $10 tablet?

All is not hunky dory though. First of all, the tablet, because of its no frills design, does look ugly and dated. Finesse is something which you cannot expect from this device. The device lacks a hard drive and although this is primarily the reason why its prices have been kept low, I doubt if this is something which will be appreciated. The presence of resistive touch also does complicate matters and spoils the fun of the touchscreen experience. Also the tablet in its current form and price is meant for educational institutions and its students. The mass market version might be priced higher.

Finally, its a mixed bag to be honest. Mediocre functionality/quality of hardware vs extremely low price. The choice as always lies with the consumer.

iPad...finally

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeAfter months, no wait, years of rumours about the elusive tablet, Apple today came out with the new iPad. (The name sucks. Doesnt it sound like a feminine hygiene device? iTampon trended on Twitter today for some unknown reason, in case you didnt know.)

It has a super awesome touch screen, uses the same precision techniques as the iphone or itouch. Has a brilliant interface which is totally customisable, has perfect integration with itunes among starters. It has a sleek, sexy, stylish 9.7 inch IPS screen, 0.5 inches thin, weighing at just 1.5 pounds, with 10 hours of battery life, has bluetooth (thank god!), WiFi, 1Ghz Apple A4 Chip, 16-64GB of flash storage, iWorks, iBook Store (which looks pretty awesome!) unprecedented reading and gaming experience...the list goes on!

And the price? Well its amazing how they have managed to price it at just $499 for the 16GB! The 3G version though costs $629. 32GB is priced at $599 and $729 for the WiFi and WiFi+3G versions respectively and the 64GB is priced at $699 and $829 for the WiFi and WiFi+3G versions respectively.

They will start shipping in 90 days time. For the time being AT&T has made a pretty pathbreaking deal with Apple but international deals will be ready by June.

That was the Apple iPad.

Erm, just before I end I think I should mention some of my concerns here. For starters, it still doesnt feature multitasking. Now that might not be a dealbreaker but its a dampener for sure. Next, I really dont think 64GB is enough of a storage really. I mean even a few mp3 files and videos these days take up quite a large amount of space. So, I'm really not sure if the iPad is really a replacement for a netbook. But if you can overlook these shortcomings, I think the sleek, stylish, uber cool iPad is one hell of a device you must own!