The iFreeTablet will be presented on February 4, just a few days after Apple’s iPad, and it will stand up to you by showing off what it does not have: storage capacity, with a 160 GB hard drive; greater connectivity, with three USB ports, VGA output and card reader; 1.3 megapixel webcam and a lower price, which will be around 300 to 400 euros, compared to the minimum 500 euros that the iPad is expected to cost in Europe.
However, it also has some drawbacks, such as the battery life, which is 2.5 hours, compared to 10 hours for the Apple tablet; the weight, which reaches 1.03 kg, compared to 680/730 g for the iPad; and the fact of using an operating system that does not have the inheritance of the thousands of iPhone applications.
The iFreeTablet is part of the Orvita2 project and is the result of 20 years of work by the EATCO Group of the University of Córdoba in the field of usability, led by Professor Carlos de Castro Lozano. It basically has the hardware of a netbook with an Intel Atom processor, but no keyboard. The screen is 10.2 inches and has a resolution of 1,024 x 600 pixels.
A proprietary system based on Debian has been developed for the software, and it is called SIeSTA
As announced on the iFreeTablet project website, the official presentation will be on February 4 and units can now be reserved on the web. (Integrated System of e-Services and Support Technologies). SIeSTA incorporates voice, movement and gesture recognition functions, and its interface is designed so that it can be easily used by the elderly or people with disabilities. The main objective has been to focus on usability, for which research by INSERSO and the Ministry of Education and Science have been taken into account, as well as the different user interfaces developed by Apple or Google. The result is a menu system with categories represented by colored buttons in which a maximum of six buttons are active, in order to simplify operation.
