Classteacher Launches Low-cost Tablet Classpad; Is It Any Fight For Aakash?

Classteacher Learning System, an educational solutions provider in India has entered the Tablet market with the launch of a new range of Tablets called 'Classpad' that according to the company will empower teachers to teach better, and students to learn better.

The Tablets come in three models- Classpad 7, Classpad 8 and Classpad 10 and will be available for a starting price of Rs 7,500 that goes up to Rs 14,000 for the costliest model.

As the name suggests, the Tablets are available in 7, 8 and 10.1inch TFT LCD capacitive touchscreen (1024X600 pixel resolution) display sizes and they run on the Android 2.2 (Froyo) operating system. The Tablet is powered by a 1.3 GHz processor and has 512MB of RAM. The internal memory of the device is 4GB that can be further expanded up to 32GB with a microSD card.

Classpad has a 0.3 megapixel front-facing camera and comes with stereo speakers. On the connectivity front, it has Wi-Fi and comes with a USB 2.0 port and a mini HDMI port. According to the company, the Tablet will provide up to 17 hours of music, 4.5 hours of video playback and 6 hours web browsing.

Since as of now the education system in India does not differentiate students according to their learning capabilities and instead teaches them at the same level, the company believes that the Tablet can help because the software installed in the Tablet tests the student's problem solving capability, creativity and application of language skills and hence provides them with personalized teaching as per their learning capabilities.

The Tablet also comes equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) and can help in categorizing students as fast learners, average learners and slow learners. Teachers can also transfer class work to the student's Tablet, share their own content instantly and conduct tests/ assessments with the Tablet.

Rohit Pande, CEO, Classteacher Learning Systems said, "Available for students in standard 3 to 12, Classpad can serve as an interactive e-reading device, with the capability of storing dozens of books. Equipped with distinctive software that is designed to integrate smoothly with existing school platforms, the Tablet can be connected to the interactive whiteboards."

Founded in 2000 by Rohit Pande and Sameer Buti (both graduates from IIT, Delhi), Classteacher Learning Systems offers digital classrooms solutions or smart classrooms to over 600 schools, 1 million students and 25,000 educators across India. The company is headquartered in New Delhi and its product offering has 85,000 modules.

The company will make the Tablets available for the general public in the third week of January, although customers will only be able to purchase the Tablet online on the company's website.

Classpad Vs Aakash:

Purely in terms of price, Aakash is way ahead of Classpad in giving low cost Tablet as an option to a student. Even Ubislate, the upgraded version of Aakash scores better than the Tablet. However, what the Tablet loses in price, it compensates in features. Classpad has a 1.3GHz processor which is much more powerful than the processor available in both Ubislate (700MHz) and Aakash (366MHz). Additionally, Classpad's 512MB of RAM is double of what is available in the other two Tablets.

The Tablet's internal memory (4GB) is also double of that available in Aakash and Ubislate, although this crosses out since all three Tablets have the option of expanding the internal memory. Finally the Classpad Tablet has a capacitive touchscreen with 1024x600 pixel resolution in comparison to Aakash's resistive touchscreen with 800x480 pixel resolution. This basically means that the touchscreen quality is much better in Classpad since users will have to actually press the screen for it to work on the Aakash Tablet.

So it's basically up to the user, whether they are willing to pay a little more for a better featured Tablet, or they are happy to stick to the cheapest Tablet in the world.

But if you look at the Tablet from a general perspective instead of that of a student, the Tablet actually competes with Tablets available in the under Rs 15,000 range (since the costliest model of Classpad is priced at Rs 14,000). These include iBall Slide (Rs 13,995), Reliance 3G tab (Rs 12,999), Beetel Teletech's Beetel Magiq (Rs 9,999), Beetel Magiq II (Rs 9,799) and Beetel Magiq Glide (Rs.11,999), Mercury's mTab (Rs 9,499), S Mobility's MiTab (Rs 11,990), HCL's ME X1 (Rs 10,490) and ME AE7-A1 (Rs 10,990) and MSI's Enjoy 7 (Rs 13,999) and Enjoy 10 (Rs 14,999).