Homegrown tablets now available

by Ashleigh Beddow
The announcement of South African home-grown developer Wise Tablets Wise Touch 1’s official release has stirred excitement in the local mobile industry. The low cost tablet was designed with the localised South African market in mind to suite the nation’s consumer, business and educational needs.

After a manufacturing delay prior its release in January this year, the first stock of Wise Touch tablets are available on Wise Tablets website and selected retail stores.

The Centurion based company’s selling point of by South Africans for South Africans finds a niche in national market by offering localised content on the Wise Touch 1.

The uniqueness of this tablet lies with its pre-loaded host of local apps which were created in association with South African Brands.

The tablets content is presented in its different ranges of WISE Business, WISE Education and WISE Shopping Mall which contains apps based on consumer, business and educational needs like banking, local retailers and learner content through an interactive user friendly interface.

The Wise Touch 1 is aiming to penetrate the regular Google Android market through offering compatibility with Android 2.3 and above along with its pre-loaded Wise software platform.

Competing with other tablets like the iPad or Samsung Galaxy, the Wise Touch 1 has based its marketability along the lines of it being wallet friendly as well as its localisation factor.

Wise Tablets believes that their market segment lies within the localisation of the tablet’s functionality not in spec information even though its specs are lower than the iPad or Galaxy.

The Wise Touch 1 is available in 7-inch and 9-inch formats with only the 7 inch entry models being available for purchase at this time at R1995. While the 9-inch formats putting you back by less than R3500.

Wise Tablets also plan on releasing a range of low cost products that also penetrate the mobile phone and TV box mobile market segments.

The Localisation Niche
The question comes to mind whether localisation is the answer to creating a more equal playing field for the South African tablet market against the established big guns like the iPad and Samsung Galaxy.

This also bears down on how this cost efficient tablet could make a difference in the amount of the tablet have and have nots in our country otherwise known as the digital divide.

Taking its fresh stance on selling points in the South African tablet sector the Wise Touch 1 stands to be a competitor in the tablet market even against high end tablets.

This post first appeared in the student's blog on MyDigitalLife