When Aakash tablet was announced there was too much excitement, the low price tag was simply unbelievable. Many consumers pre-booked the tablet but they never got it and then Aakash 2 was announced in December, an improved version and consumers pre-booked that too, but again they never got it. And now it is said that the Aakash 2 will launch in April.
Indian consumers who were desperately looking for the low cost tablet then got another option to choose from, the BSNL – Penta another brand that announced their low cost version. And even before its launch Aakash 2 got its first competitor.
The BSNL tablets were priced few hundred rupees more than the Aakash and since consumers were fed-up waiting for the Aakash tablet started pre-booking the BSNL-Penta tablet. But alas they too were taking their own sweet time.
There is a huge market in India for low cost tablets, but Aakash and BSNL tablets are simply not working what is the reason behind it?
Unprofessional Approach
Datawind and Pantel the manufacturers of Aakash and BSNL-Penta started accepting pre-orders using a simple form. The users would fill in the form and a booking id is generated which is sent to the users email. Before delivery the company will call the user and confirm the order and the payment options. Unfortunately the users were kept waiting and communication was big problem.
The support phone numbers that Datawind had mentioned on their site never worked and the email response was too slow and did not help either. According to some users who got an email from Datawind were asked to send a DD or Cheque to the Datawind office. Even after making the payment no one had an idea when the unit will be delivered. In fact many of the users had canceled the cheques that were still uncleared. The unlucky ones who had send a DD (Demand Draft) can cancel only when they get the original DD back from Datawind.
As far as Pantel company is concerned you can get though the telephonic support after few tries. The delivery process from was to start from 1st week of March which never happened. My booking id number is under 3000 and when I called the support they told me the delivery will happen after 24 th April, again no clear indication. But within few days I got an email from Pantel stating that my order was ready and that I need to confirm and deposit cash or cheque at the nearest PNB (Punjab National Bank). I don’t understand why these companies make things so complicated. This will surely hit their sales unless that come up with user friendly approach.