Googling 'Indian inventions' brought a wiki page listing a handful of 'trivial' items that have been listed as our inventions. Pajamas, Buttons, Puppets to name a few.
I have been following Notion Ink since last year, when they announced plans for designing and manufacturing an Android based tablet, called, the ADAM.
Though not completely indigenous, as Apple had just shown the world the greatest wonder of the personal electronics world, the iPad.
To Notion Inks credit, they did have a differentiator in mind, to make the tablet unique and not a mere copy cat of its predecessor. Within a few months after the initial announcement, a pro-type was done and the CEO of Notion Ink (Rohan) carried it around and demonstrated its capabilities and the differentiators.
What seemed like vaporware, took shape very prominently and the final version of the ADAM had started shipping since early this year.
I ordered my Adam when the pre-order window was made available for the early enthusiasts.
It was a gamble to pay $500+ to an unknown company. But, i decided to jump in, just to support this fresh school of thought and the possibilities this will bring to other thinkers, if this had to succeed.
The initial experience with Notion Ink was less than optimal, as they were going through the launch pains, the logistics, manufacturing issues, software issues, customs issues, shipment issues, credit card issues, and you name it issues.
It took more than four weeks to get my Adam on hand, from the initially promised shipping time.
Lets forget the past for a moment.
I did get my Adam last week.
I was glad to get it and unbox it and confirm it was not a vaporware.
It was sleek.
The initial impression (having used iPad before this) was a bit questionable. I was wondering, whether I should have gone for ipad2.
Part of the reason was, Notion Ink's Eden OS (Android 2.2 based). It took a while to get used to it, as there was no detailed manual that came with it.
Even after figuring out the usage, it still lacked a punch, when compared to iPad's simplicity.
After rooting it and getting some apps from the Google Market Place, Adam is becoming healthy and charming to handle.
The negatives so far (or stuff that i havent figured out yet):
1) cant get the vibrator work during key-press. without vibrate, feels brick'd sometimes.
2) camera is mediocre quality. lot of grains and plastic'y.
3) some apps were dis-oriented on launch. launches upside down. (app issue not tablets?)
4) the front panel is buggy. not many apps that support the 'leaf' concept, anyway. (installed Launcher Pro and it works great now. to get the 'normal' android view, touching the timestamp on the front panel slides it down)
5) facebook doesnt show a 'save password'. have to login everytime.
6) a little unresponsive sometimes to the touch, especially on the market place (search icon)
7) The OOB browser isn't cool. (downloaded Opera mini)
8) though the curved shape is nice to see and hold, i couldn't find a good case that will do justice to it.
The positives:
1) the hdmi port (yet to test it)
2) support group from notioninkhacks.com and other sites will prove to be useful.
3) the pixel qi LCD is amazingly cool.
more to come...
