Wishtel Ira: Not Ok!

Tablets made an entry into the Indian market barely a couple of years back, and all of a sudden the market is inundated with these devices-some from the major global players like Apple, Samsung and Motorola, and some from the other 'not-so-known' manufacturers based out of China and Taiwan. Keeping the ever growing Indian telecom space and a market for a billion people in mind, many an Indian player has also jumped into the rat race.

Wishtel, an Indian company, joined the Indian tablet bandwagon with the launch of two tablet devices at the fag end of the last fiscal. The company that is believed to be entrusted with the responsibility of manufacturing Akash 2 tablets for the government under its National Mission on Education through ICT and sponsored by the Ministry of Human Resource, has launched two tablets-Ira and Ira Thing-priced between `4,000 and `5,500.

Hardware

The difference is very little, in their configuration as well as in their prices. The Ira has a resistive touch screen, 256 RAM, and 2 GB internal memory, and the Ira Thing comes with capacitive single touch screen, 512 RAM, and 4 GB memory. These tablets feature a 7-inch display, a 800 MHz processor made by Via, have a full USB port, a mini USB port, and have support for external memory cards.

Notably, these tablets support USB modems and have built-in Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g capabilities. On the battery front, Wishtel has packed the IRA tablets with a 2,800 mAh battery and these claim five hours of battery life on Wi-Fi and 3G modes and three hours of video playback.

Though the company has tried its best to put everything into the device at a price point at what even a decent looking mobile phone fails to fit, the tablet struggles to convince a potential buyer why they should go for it. No way, the tablets are going to be the first digital device that any Indian customer would hold for the first time in his life. Tablets solve a very specific purpose and when the purpose is not solved as desired, products tend to crash in the market. Many of the tablets available in the Indian market including that of Wishtel fall in that category.

Software

Both the devices, Ira and Ira Thing, come with the Android 2.3 OS. As far as preloaded apps are concerned an internet browser, media player, photo viewer, office document editor, Skype, and iRead apps are provided. Though it supports Wi-Fi, connecting to the internet through Wi-Fi appear to be very troublesome.

Many a time, it fails to recognize the open Wi-Fi hotspots around. The good part about the tablet is that the company has brought this device with local language support, which would definitely help many Indians living in rural areas to learn through their own mother tongue.

At first look it gives the impression of any other tablet but the moment you start using the device, you start getting irritated even before you start experimenting with its various features. The device feels cranky and cheap. Price-wise it's cheap, so good-but if it gives a cheap user experience-that's not for me. The app icons do not respond to touch as they ought to-at times they demand a hard press, as if they are physical buttons. You do not expect that in a touch screen device. Well, cost should not be the excuse here. Wishtel Ira comes with a single physical button on the front to activate a 'go back' application. Most of the times a hard press is required to activate the button.

Wish, Wishtel would look at user experience and not just the budget for its future products.