The $35 tablet that never was

 

The $35 dollar tablet is dead. It was the kind of project that you can imagine starting life as a pub bet. As the clock winds round to 11:00 on a Saturday night and the barman begins clearing the glasses away the solutions to so many of the world’s problems seem straightforwardly simple don’t they?

Cheap tablet? Sure, I could do that, pass me that napkin I’ll sketch out the Bill of Materials, design and development, licensing, packaging and shipping costs. There you go, $35.

I am being somewhat disparaging. With the right volume of pre-orders (in the millions) perhaps it’s not quite an impossible dream and at some point in the future, as commodity costs fall, it might yet happen. But really, other than general ignorance, I wonder how this vapourware was ever entertained as a legitimate story.

Image: The Guardian