KZBlog

Arta Software, which produced Astana Racer the first racing game in Kazakhstan, presented the its own Kazakhstani tablet computer. Apparently this was in September of last year and I totally missed it.

However in December of 2010 there was a lot of noise about the Prime Minister’s insistencethat all Ministers have an iPad, and Arta announced at that time that they would release their own tablet computer. A press release from that time says it should be on the market in March of 2011 with a price of $500. Unlike the iPad, the device will be aimed at business users.

A prototype featured:

ARM-Cortex-A8 processor to 1 GHz, 10.1-inch display (resolution 1024×600 pixels) and 256 megabytes of RAM…operating system Linux. Built-in flash storage device that is used for storing programs and data, has a capacity of 8 GB. Extend it by using memory cards microSD. Communication capabilities include Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, as well as support data transmission on mobile networks of third generation (3G)

iPads cost around $1200 in Kazakhstan (in the US a 16GB iPad with wireless only connectivity costs $500 and the top of the line 64GB with WiFi and 3G costs $829) and one wonders how so many government officials are able to afford one on their publically paid salaries.

In any case, check out the presentation for more details and pictures of the Arta Tablet (which I will continue to call a KazPad unless they threaten legal action against me. It would be nice to see some screenshots of more than just the homepage. The fact that there’s no photo of any apps running or anyone doing anything with it is a bit suspicious.