Vietnam introduced its first set of digitalized textbooks for grades 1 through to 12 on a tablet on Wednesday in Hanoi.

The device, Classbook, costs VND4.8 million (US$229), while paper textbooks for the same grades can be bought for VND2 million ($95) in total.

About 310 book titles, together with other education-related applications, are installed on the gadget, which has an 8 inch multi-touch screen using IPS technology that resists dazzling effects and allows wide viewing angles.

Users can update the textbooks free of charge whenever there are new editions, according to Pham Thuc Truong Luong, director of EDC Company, the developer of Classbook. EDC is the digital textbook arm under the Vietnam Education Publishing House, the country’s sole textbook publisher.

Students can look up the meaning of a particular word or listen to its pronunciation simply by touching the screen when they are learning English, Luong said, adding that they can also record their voices to contrast with native speakers’ accents available on the device.

Audio-visual illustrations are also available for other subjects like math, physics, chemistry, history, geography, biology, music, and literature, he added.

Classbook can help students assess their own performance on each subject with the support of multiple choice tests and an automatic grading system. More importantly, parents can also keep track of their children’s studies as test results are recorded on the gadget after they have taken the tests.

There are two editions of Classbook, one for students which can access pre-designated education-related websites only, and the other for teachers that can freely surf any site, the publisher said.

Luong, the director, admitted that the price makes it inaccessible for poor students so the government should subsidize it to help popularize the tablet throughout the country.

Thailand has set a target to provide 1.7 million tablet computers for $100 each to primary and middle school students and teachers this year.

In 2011 India launched what it said was the world's cheapest tablet computer, which was sold to students at the subsidized price of $35.