Beetel Magiq for Rs. 9900 – Airtel’s explosive foray into tablets

Beetel Magiq tablet which surfaced few weeks back is now officially launched. Beetel Magiq is a 3G tablet which is available for a price of Rs. 9999. Yes the barrier of 10K for a good tablet is finally broken by Beetel Magiq. Tablet market is still warming up and Beetel Magiq might add the much needed catalyst for the tablet adoption in India. It has some great specifications and comes at a great price. Asking anything more would be greedy.

Beetel Magiq  is powered by 1GHz Qualcomm snapdragon processor, comes with 800×480 resolution on 7-inch (capacitive or resistive?), 2 megapixel camera, VGA front-facing camera, Android 2.2, 8 GB internal memory and a 2200 mAh battery. Magiq is 3G enabled and works on 2G SIM’s too.

The good

Almost everything about the tablet is good. But let me spell out the top 3 things which impressed me.

1. The price : At Rs. 9900, none of the existing tablets come close.
2. Processor : 1 GHz processor on a 7-inch tablet is all you need.
3. Dual camera : A front-facing VGA camera along with a 2 megapixel camera. Now that’s what makes this tablet compelling

The not so good

1. Android 2.2 : I never got why manufacturers launch a tablet with an old operating system.

But is the price really Rs. 9900?

The tablet is a steal and is at least 2000 rupees off from the original price for it to be even profitable for Airtel. I don’t think Airtel is trying to be profitable with the tablet sale. It is betting on the data services.

Airtel is packing in a 2GB free data per month for 2 months. The plan is available for both postpaid and pre-paid customers.

With the revenues from regular voice service dwindling, telcos are scampering to gain as many 3G subscribers and sell data services. We all knew that. But it became super evident after Reliance has launched its 3G tablet last week and packed in data plans with that tablet.

With Airtel’s Beetel Magiq we know 3G and tablets have arrived in India.