Gurgaon: Following the launch of three smartphones last weekend, Karbonn Mobiles today launched Agnee, it’s 3G tablet, completely made in India.
The tablet is powered by Qualcomm Technologies Inc’s SnapDragon processor and has been designed and developed by Karbonn in collaboration with Innominds Technologies – the USP of the tablet being its iCare content platform, which will provide education solutions and a platform for a comprehensive and collaborative platform for students and faculty.
“Karbonn Mobiles is envisioned to introduce innovative technology across the globe. We are pleased to announce Karbonn AGNEE, the first Made in India 3G tablet which will surely take a step forward in making engaged mobility solutions a reality for the Indian consumers,” Pradeep Jain, managing director, Karbonn Mobiles said at the release event.
Karbonn’s new tablet Agnee.
The first variation of the table to be launched will be the Agnee L model, which is the most basic. The Agnee L will have a 7 inch display with a 4.0 Android OS – which the manufacturers say can be updated as and when Android updates. The table will have two cameras – in the front and at the rear. The front facing camera has a resolution of 1.3 MP front. The tablet will be priced below Rs 10,000.
Anil Katakam, Executive Vice President, Innominds Technologies said, “We have taken Qualcomm’s reference design and built it from scratch. This tablet is a collaboration between Innominds and Karbonn.””
Aside from iCare, the tablet’s content platform, which will support both rich text and HTML, the tablet will also support 22 Indian languages.
“This is not the 3G dongle enabled tablet – it’s 3G is both voice and data enabled tablet. It is going to be customised to the Indian experience in terms of the apps and experience. That’s what’s going to be different. Ours will also be the first tablet to support 22 Indian languages,” added Katakam.
The apps for the tablet will be broadly based on education, entertainment and general interests like newspapers, reading, usage and directory related services. And while some apps will be free of cost, many will have free trial periods which will eventually become paid apps.
Karbonn Mobiles plans to launch the product in the next three to four weeks – hoping to ride on the festive fever by aiming for a pre-Diwali release.
Karbonn Mobiles is one among the may local companies like Micromax that is competing with international brands like Samsung and Apple Inc. In India’s smartphone and tablet space.
According to a CyberMedia Research (CMR) India Quarterly Media Tablets Market Review, as of the second quarter of 2012, close to 90 vendors launched new tablets in the market, with the average price of a tablet having dropped to a little above Rs 13,000 from Rs 26,000 in Q1 of 2012. A majority of vendors in early 2012 launched their products in the Rs 5,000-10,000 price range, making India’s nascent tablet a very competitive one.
