Pre-order for the Aakash Tablet have already started, you might have read this on many blogs or sites, however I would advise you not to use those site as of now until there is an official word about it in the news or in newspapers. The commercial version of the Aakash tablet is expected to be priced at Rs. 2,999.
Update: Aakash tablet is now available buy online. The aakashtablet.com site has now removed all the links from the bottom as mentioned below. But other domains still have the links (www.ubislate.com, aakashdatawind.com, akashlaptop.com, akashcomputer.com.. to name a few!). They now have a Pre-book your UbiSlate option. Again it is just a form you can add any dummy data, the form is not verified you can add abc in email without the @ sign. when you submit, you get a text message that an email will be sent with UbiSlate Booking ID and someone from our sales team would get in touch with payment and delivery options. It still sounds a bit weird.
Okay so you can pre-order the Aakash tablet from the site www.aakashtablet.com. But hey, hold on. Try visiting the site but do not fill in any information. On the first look the site looks good but I noticed several links at the bottom all pointing to different sites with the same intention.
On the left side you see the option that says “Book your UbiSlate7 now”. The form collects all your details like name, email, contact number, address, city and state and then there is query field which really sound strange. Try entering dummy data and you will find that you get a message saying thank you for showing your interest. Well I am already interested and this form was supported to book the Aakash table but, instead it just took my valuable details (thankfully I added some dummy data).
Now try going through the same process again using the same dummy data. You will still see the thank you message (I was expecting it to show that the data was already registered) , this again is surprising.
One the www.aakashtablet.com site there are links to about 25 domains each featuring the same design / format with small changes. And each of those sites feature the same form, but interestingly none of them actually pre-orders the Aakash Tablet. I checked the whois for some of the domains and they belong to the same party however the domain details (owner, address etc) are hidden using domainsbyproxy and the same goes for all the domains listed. This creates a lot of suspicion.
The toll free number and the address mentioned on the site are genuine and is the same as on the www.ubisurfer.com site, who are the official manufacturers of the Aakash tablet PC. The UbiSurfer site however does not mention if the Tablet can be pre-ordered in India and also there is no link from their site to the aakashtablet.com and the 25 other similar domains.
Some question that one should ask before they punch in their personal information on these sites.
- If these Pre-order Aakash Tablet sites were really genuine then why do they need so many domains when one domain was sufficient?
- Why does the form say order (pre-order) when they are not actually placing an order?
- The Toll free number and address on the site matches the ubisurfer.com site but the ubisurfer.com site never links back to these or a matter of fact even does not mentions it on their site.
I know you people are excited about the 7 inch Aakash Tablet, so before you punch in your personal data on these sites, think again.