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Friday 6 July 2012

Ghana Launches K-Pad Tablet: Hurray!!

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The 9.7inch K-PAD tab
By Samuel Dawuona 
30/05/2012
Source: http://samuelobour.com/2012/05/30/ghana-launches-k-pad-tablet/#.T8iX8UHmVpS.facebook


In a groundbreaking moving, Ghana has launched it first tablet – the K-pad.
The K-pad was developed by Alltel Limited, a technology company.
The tablet comes in four sizes – 7 inches, 8 inches, 9.7 inches and 10 inches.
The 9.7inch K-PAD tab, for instance, runs on Android OS and has a Multi–touch screen, LCD screen, Freescale i.MX515 CORTEX A8 CPU, 2G Flash memory, Bluetooth, WIFI support 802.11b/g, and 1.3 mega pixel webcam. It also supports word, excel, PowerPoint, PDF and TXT, supports most video and audio player formats, USB, e-learning and e-books.
The 7 inches K-pad costs GHC1450 ($725). The 9.7 inch K-pad is worth Ghc1850 ($925)
While the 10.1inch K-pad is going for GHC2,150 ($1,025) Buyers will get a three year flexible payment plan.
Continue reading the following report from Samuel Nii Narku Dawuona
The owner of Alltel Ltd., Mr. Kofi Kludjeson, said the K-pad had gained international recognition as the single tablet coming from Africa comparable with Apple’s I-Pad.
Mr Kludjeson: said that K-pad was an improvement on the i-Pad, because it has everything else that I-Pad has, including a USB port, ADMI.
He added that unlike the I-Pad which was a closed system, the K-Pad has an open source for users to access more applications for free.
“Now we have I-Pad one, two and three but this is just K-pad one and it already has more than what the three I-Pads have, so you can only imagine where K-pad would go from here,” he said.
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K-pads come in three specifications – the Android 7-inches which works as a phone as well because it has a SIM slot, the 9.7-inches, which is the flagship product from Alltel, and the 10-inches one developed specifically for education and for teachers, and therefore comes with both Android and Windows applications.
“Currently we are testing Windows 8 on the K-pad 10-inches and it working fine so far,” Kludjeson said.
He said the company has struck direct deals with Google and other application markets and developers to provide users with wide range of opportunity to obtain applications to meet their specific needs.
“K-pad has gained so much international recognition such that over the past three months that since we did the pre-launch release, we have had BBC radio come to us twice, Reuters News Agency from the UK and recently Belgium TV also come to interview us about the product,” he said.
He noted that all the international media houses, which reviewed K-pad passed it as the only product of its kind coming from Africa, which has passed the test of international standards in terms of its sleek design and usability anywhere in the world.
“As we speak now K-pad is already in Nigeria, Liberia, Mozambique and just at this fair we have had approaches from South Africa, Zimbabwe and other countries, and we have also struck a deal to provide K-pad to Kenya, which we would be doing in the next few months,” he said.
He said the company was targeting just about five per cent of each economy within the next three years and that was expected to reach about 1.2 million customers in Ghana for instance.
Mr. Kludjeson said the main focus of K-pad and K-phone was to provide e-learning and e-health solutions among other data communication for the Ghanaian, African and eventually the world markets.
He said over the past three months, K-pad had been piloted among selected groups of workers like the police, the military, doctors, nurses, teachers and even some churches, and it the pilot had been very successful.
“K-pad has enough memory to download several books for students and also has a voice application for the bible and our team is developing applications for the 1992 Constitution for teachers and students, we are also working to have school curriculums on K-pad all for free and for hymn books on K-pad specifically for churches,” he said.
Mr. Kludjeson said Alltel was also working with schools to establish e-learning centres in all second cycle school because the Ministry of Education had approved of K-pad and asked all teachers to participate, adding the first e-learning centre was piloted at Accra Academy weeks ago.
He said moves were underway to provide K-pads to university students within the next three years, and also supply health workers in the rural areas to take and easily transmit basic health data of patients to the appropriate quarters so those patients could have access to quality medical care from specialists, who may not be presents in the rural areas.
Mr. Kludjeson said Alltel was also working with the telecom and other companies to provide 4G and LTE networks in Ghana to ensure that K-pad users, for instance, would have high speed internet on their tablets.
Story Credit: Samuel Dawuona
You can follow him on twitter @SamuelObour

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