Homegrown mobile company Micromax, on Tuesday, entered the tablet PC market by launching FunBook, priced at just Rs.6,499.
Positioned as an edutainment device, Mircomax's tablet is aimed at younger generation and the firm had tied up with leading education and entertainment content providers.
As the Centre gears to launch phase II of Aakash tablet PCs (to distribute 50-lakh devices to students priced at Rs.2,276 each), more companies are making a foray into the tablet PC market, offering feature-rich devices at competitive prices.
These recent tablet launches by companies are seen as precursor to the government's bidding process for the Aakash project that is likely to begin soon.
Micromax's FunBook comes with seven-inch screen and is powered by Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich. It has a 1.22 GHz processor, 0.3 MP VGA front camera and 4 GB internal memory (expandable up to 32GB).
The company has roped in companies such as Pearson, Everonn, and Vriti to provide digital education content, while firms such as Bigflix, Indiagames and Zenga will offer entertainment applications.
“Fun and education are two important elements of a youth's life…it is poised to change the way fun and learning is consumed on the go,” Micromax CEO Deepak Mehrotra told journalists here.
He said users needed to pay just Rs.799 for educational content of a particular class and they could get access to the multimedia content from their partners.
Micromax is manufacturing the device at its plant at Haridwar.
“We have a manufacturing capacity of one lakh units a month and we are already looking at increasing that number,” Mr. Mehrotra added.
FunBook will initially be available in 50 cities.
