Karbonn Joins The Tablet Party, Announces Android ICS Tablet

After Micromax, another Indian mobile handset manufacturer has entered the country's Tablet market with the announcement of a 7 inch Tablet called Karbonn Smart Tab 1. The Tablet runs on the Android Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) operating system and will be targeted at the low-price segment of the Tablet market. Exact price details are not available as of now but the device will be launched next month.

The Tablet has a 7 inch LCD (480×800 pixel resolution) multi-touch capacitive touchscreen display and runs on the Android 4.0.3 (ICS) OS. The Tablet is powered by a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor and has 512MB of RAM. The internal memory of the device is 8GB which can be expanded up to an additional 32GB with a microSD card.

It comes with a 2 mega pixel front facing camera for video calling that can also record videos and on the connectivity front, it has Wi-Fi, 3G (through a USB dongle) and comes with a USB 2.0 and a HDMI port. The Tablet has a 3,700 mAh battery which the company claims will provide up to 7 hours of Internet surfing, 8 hours of video and 25 hours of music playback.

Karbonn Smart Tab 1 also has a 3D G-Sensor which according to the company will provide an enhanced gaming experience. The dimension of the device is not available as of now.

Although the company has not disclosed the price of the Tablet, it should definitely be under Rs 10,000 given its specifications. In that price range, it will compete with Tablets like HCL ME Tab U1 (Rs 7,999), Zync Z-990 (Rs 8,500), iBerry Auxus AX02 (Rs 9,900), Mercury's mTab (Rs 9,499), Beetel Teletech's Beetel Magiq II (Rs 9,799) and the recently launched Micromax Funbook.

What we found strange is without actually providing the exact price details of the Tablet; the company has made it available for pre-order (for individual and bulk orders) on its website.

These days every company worth its salt is launching a Tablet and that too with almost identical specifications. But the fact is that unlike the high-price segment where Retina displays, Quad-core processors and 8MP cameras play a key role in grabbing customer attention, it is the value-added services that become the differentiating factor for the low-priced Tablets. And Karbonn should also focus on providing these if it wants to come out as a market leader (take hint from Micromax that is offering a number of entertainment apps (like Zenga TV, Big Flix, etc) pre-loaded with its Funbook Tablet).