Adam, the most-awaited Indian gadget

Karthik Subramanian

Will Hyderbad-based Notion Ink's tablet PC become a hit with users?

— Photo: Special Arrangement

Notion Ink's Adam.

CHENNAI: In a fervent plea to thousands of gadget enthusiasts the Hyderabad-based startup Notion Ink's young CEO Rohan Shravan, through his blog, urged people to just “hold on” and stop wildly speculating about the launch of his company's much-awaited tablet PC ‘Adam.'

The speculation of gadget fans is understandable. Ever since the world got a preview of the sleek 10.1 inch tablet PC at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, the buzz about it has been overwhelmingly positive. Some of the leading geek blogs, including Engadget, have handed high praise to the gadget designed by the Indian firm.

Don't mind waiting

What with a flurry of announcements from the big vendors, such as Asus, Acer and HP, and the growing march of Apple's iPad, several gadget enthusiasts are eager to know when Adam would hit the stores. Many of them don't mind waiting the extra couple of months as it could well mean a lower attack on the wallet. Notion Ink has stressed the “aggressive pricing” factor. Adam seems to have caught the attention for its innovations. Apart from featuring, as a standard, things that are absent in the basic models of the tablets already in the market today — such as the 1080p HD output, 3G and Wifi capability — it will also have some cutting edge technology hitherto unseen in mainstream gadgets.

Fantabulous promise

A case in point is the critically acclaimed American manufacturer Pixel Qi's transflective display that consumes the quantum of power used by traditional PC displays and works both as a backlit screen and a reflective display. Notion Ink's promise for Adam's battery borders on the fantabulous: over 140 hours of audio and 16 hours of HD video playback.

Adam also features an innovative 180-degree swivel camera and a multi-touch input, two features for which Notion Ink has applied for patents. In an email interview with The Hindu, Mr. Shravan admitted that while other vendors might not waste time in replicating some of the hardware differentiators, the key differentiators for Adam could well be developers and the Apps store.

Key differentiations

“The constantly refreshing Application Store will help expand its usage beyond everyday. We have 3 key hardware differentiations, but it does not take a while to replicate [though we have patents on 2]. The other extremely important differentiator is the User Interface (UI). It's a completely different concept and will leave its own mark on the UI which will be designed in future.”

Two versions

Notion Ink will launch two versions of Adam; one featuring the Pixel Qi display and another featuring a cheaper LCD screen. For more details on Notion Ink and Adam, follow their official website at www.notionink.in.