hi Charbax,

I dont think your BOM is correct as its missing a lot key components. You have not taken into account any SSD which is normally at least 2GB and cost around $8.5 without this Android system wont work at all. Also the most important aspect in your BOM you have missed you havent added any manufacturing and other costs which also run upto $5. Yes are right that at the moment the price for MID in China are around $60-80 but to push that too $35 is a really a hard thing maybe possible in Q1 2011.

I think it's more likely 128MB RAM.

don't worry bruce, the united states and other industrialized country are ready to absorb them to their workforce. heard about third world brain drain? way way back then, now and the future !!!

The Indian project doesn't compete with the $650 iPad because they're too far apart.

All that said, India needs to really address the basics first.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion…

Dear Charbax,

though I might find it ok to be called a fanboy of your ARM-research (keep up the good work) I am definitely not a fanboy of Android.

Why? Can you mount an USB-flash-drive on Android? Can you WORK with Android, i.e. does it provide a decent word processor or spreadsheet app?

You fall short when you believe that the tablet as specified above will bring the 3rd World people much further than their cellulars. Both means consuming content solely — and thats not what computers should be restricted to.

Hence what we need (here) is a tablet running Ubuntu and not Anroid!

Greetings from Dar es Salaam / Tanzania

Archos 7 Home Tablet is an ARM9 tablet, $179 retail price in stores in the USA with all of its intermediaries. Web browsing is not as fast as ARM Cortex A8 of course, but it's still very usable I would say. You can watch my video: http://138.2.152.197/2010/03/01/exclusive-vide…

I am sure AllGo might have stated some optimistic prices, based on large orders. But I am pretty sure $35 is not far off. Just look at all the other cheap ARM9 Android tablets that are being sold by many different manufacturers. Be them VIA based, Rockchip, Samsung or this Freescale i.MX233.

He said processor and memory $8. I don't know if that somehow includes the i.MX233 and 128MB RAM or something like that. The i.MX233 is a System on Chip, it includes USB, video codecs and all other things like that. On ARM devices there are much fewer components required than on an Intel based PC.

Sure the full out of factory cost may be closer to $50 or maybe it's even $80 if not also being able to order some large quantities confidently in the millions.

All the above account for more than 15 usd.So it's obviously a lie.
Plus with these specifications you don't have anything more more than a slow wireless PMP.
Ever wondered why they didn't show you web browsing?Good luck with calling it a tablet.

All I know is AllGo systems quoted that exact same BOM price a month ago in my video filmed at the FTF. And AllGo Systems is from Bangalore India, the same place where the “Indian Human Ressources” thing is coming from, the same city this announcement was made. It could be a coincidence. And who's to know if there are companies that are created by people who also research at Universities. They say they designed the motherboard and ported Android to i.MX233 and that processor sounds like it provides one of the cheapest solutions. I don't know how price difference might be with VIA or Samsung for such ARM9 lowest cost solution.

The $35 BOM cost that is being talked about is an indication, the idea is that Governments buy this directly from the factory and give them to all the Children, so you only add the cost of shipping containers or something.

Also, while this is a pretty good alternative, I doubt if this is the same PC. Didn't Mr. Sibal tell us that the project was completely through educational institutions and that the private sector had little contribution?

Thanks for letting me know, I posted a comment there:

Moore's law doesn't need to accelerate, the $35 Tablet does exist, I've filmed it: http://138.2.152.197/2010/07/23/indias-35-tabl…

You don't need 2GB of RAM, 128MB is enough for a very basic Android tablet.

100 Chinese companies are selling $60-80 Android tablets at the moment, just check my site, you have to order 10 thousand units though. But prices can be pushed down, and I believe the $35 mark is not far off.

7″ resistive touch screen with WVGA 800×480 resolution can be made for very cheap, especially if ordered in large quantities. I'd much prefer that they then order it using Pixel Qi LCD manufacturing technology, it wouldn't require much more price per unit but can only happen if millions of units are ordered by some very big orders. That would allow the tablet to be used for reading, it would give it amazing 40 hour battery runtime comparable with e-ink and at the same time have the option to turn on the backlight and thus be like a full normal tablet. But it would be best to use wide view anti-glare capacitive touch and that would increase cost unless millions of units are ordered and paid for upfront to the appropriate LCD screen manufacturer.

The fact that gullible media should rather report on is not how full of it the Indian HRD department is, I don't like the way India's HRD criticize OLPC either, that is just completely out of place. What the gullible media lacks to report on is how extremely overpriced the iPad, iPhone, iPod and other such devices are, and every other piece of hardware made by Apple and made by the big corporations in this industry that try to imitate Apple. They see how huge of profit margins Apple is doing, how they are literally swimming in huge swimming pools full of gold and money, all the competitors try to maximize profit margins in the same way.

So the question is not, can a $35 tablet be made or not. It can be made, or for $50 or surely $75, the question is only, is there anyone brave enough to make it and sell it at that price. Right now, there isn't anyone doing any major sales this way.

Nokia is pretty good at selling $10 mobile phones in the third world countries, amazingly they sell half a billion phones a year that way. Nearly everyone in Africa, India, South America already have a Nokia phone. It's pretty amazing when you think about it. I appreciate it from Nokia that a part of their organization does focus on large volume and low margins. But nobody is yet doing it with anything smart, like some Android based devices like Tablets or Laptops.

Yeah Laptops, the keyboard and touch pad is actually cheaper than a touch screen. So when there is a $35 Tablet, there can be a $30 Laptop as well. I like tablets, but somehow I think the Laptop form factor has already proven itself to be a useful form factor already and thus it shouldn't be avoided.

I am not working in any of those companies that order millions of components from manufacturer, thus I can't really know exactly what the prices are. Some sites like ifixit and other claim to have insider knowledge on the prices and they do research.

But I am pretty sure the most basic 7″ WVGA resistive touch screens can be made for very cheap. It's basically like a portable DVD player screen, they are mass manufactured. Very few are capacitive so that would either be impossible or it would increase the price by 3x or more.

I do believe the $35 tablet is possible. The way though it would have to be sold would be through a non-profit like OLPC or some Government sponsored project like India's HRD and it would be sold directly to Governments in large quantities, preferably millions of units per order.

You won't find that price though at a retailer unless somehow a very big retailer like WalMart in the USA or Aldi/Medion or some major super market chain were to order very large quantities and sell them with low profit margins, high volume, low margin, that is one way those products can be sold. Also there are strategies those stores can advertise cheap prices on certain things to attract the public in their stores to buy other things.

Care to comment on this article:
“Why the $35 tablet will never exist?”
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9179591/…

Do you think it's possible to make an $15 resistive screen?
Would it be necessary to import those screens from China, or does India have the capabilities to provide these screens?

Thanks for your article, makes lots of sense.