How does the JooJoo Tablet PC compare with the Apple iPad and other tablet PCs?
Today on whattabletpc.com, we’re continuing our series looking at alternative tablet PC options to the Apple iPad. This week we’ll have a look at the Fusion Garage JooJoo Tablet PC.
What is the JooJoo Tablet PC?
After various delays Fusion Garage launched the JooJoo (formerly known as the CrunchPad) internet tablet PC more-or-less on the same day as the Apple iPad. Not a great start from a PR/marketing perspective and the device hasn’t reviewed well so far either. We won’t spend too much time on it in this article as it’s currently not close to being a worthy advisory to the iPad. However there is potential so things could improve.
Who are Fusion Garage?
Fusion Garage are the Singapore-based manufacturers of the JooJoo tablet PC. They are a new start-up business with only this one tablet PC product so far and around 14 employees (although growing). The firm’s CEO, Chandra Rathakrishanan has recognised the initial issues with the JooJoo and is quoted on the Fusion Garage blog as saying “We have brought this bad joojoo on ourselves and I take full responsibility for where we are today”. It’s good to see this honest approach and we can only hope that things will improve with new software releases.
So how does the JooJoo stack up?
At it’s heart the JooJoo is a 12 inch beautifully designed (aesthetically anyway) internet-browser-based tablet PC. That is the JooJoo doesn’t have a traditional operating system or applications just an operating environment that is purely a browser with Wi-Fi connection. What this means is you can surf the web with it and any tasks you may want to do would be done on web applications such as Google docs for word processing or spreadsheets, Spotify for music etc.
You can also use Adobe Flash applications/games or you could even run a web app to get access to your home pc files. The JooJoo won’t allow you to load music, photos or video directly on to the device currently.
What does the JooJoo user interface look like?
The JooJoo runs it’s own Linux-based operating environment. You can power on in less than 10 seconds and are presented with square icons that represent popular websites such as YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and major news sites. These are then quick to click on and you get straight to their websites. What is much more tricky is getting on to any other sites that don’t have these shortcuts as you need to swipe at a navigation bar located at the top of the screen with a finger and enter your URL of choice.
Engadget picked up in more detail how the interface works so I’ll pass over to them for some of the gory details here…
In summary, it’s not very intuitive and the buggy software implementation means you may have to swipe numerous times to get it to work. You also sometimes accidently pick up a link in the site you’re currently browsing.
The whole experience is messy and you’re required to learn what mix of single or double finger swipes achieve the action you’re looking for – hardly intuitive and somewhat intermittent in it’s execution too.
There is also a virtual keyboard for typing URLs or handling emails (web based email only rather than an email application such as Microsoft Outlook) but automatic capitalisation and predictive/self corrective text are missing frustratingly.
Who is the JooJoo Tablet PC for?
The average user who is comfortable using web apps and cloud based services who wants a mobile device for surfing on the move. Bear in mind the larger form means its more suited to being rested on lap than held in one hand standing up. The only downside to this is you can do all of the above and much much more on other devices for the same price. The one big advantage it does have over the Apple iPad tablet is that it supports Flash… we’ll comeback to that shortly.
Details…
What’s the JooJoo Tablet PC screen like?
It’s a bigger form factor than the iPad with a display at 12.1 inches (measured diagonally) compared to 9.7 inches of the iPad. Also it’s 0.7 inches thick compared with a 0.5 inches thick iPad. That’s great if you want more screen real estate for video but bear in mind you give away portability and that this device will only stream films via Wi-Fi – not so great if you want to view your own collection. Screen function is all comparable to the iPad with capacitive multitouch and accelerometer. The screen hardware is highly responsive but the iPad outpaces the JooJoo also on viewing angles where it’s IPS display shines. It’s ok to share with 1 or 2 people but forget it if you’re trying to view the screen from a wider viewing angle. In terms of the resolution its 1366 x 768 is comparable with the ICD Gemini and better than the iPad so has strong potential for high definition video.
What are the key features of the JooJoo Tablet PC?
The following spec looks impressive… 1.6GHz Atom processor, 1GB RAM and 4GB solid state drive and Nvidia ion graphics unit. The result – it’s speedy nipping between menus etc. but the software just isn’t comparable and so doesn’t harness it’s potential.
Other features…
- A USB port – only for charging, this is a browser based tablet so you can’t load on files via USB stick yet although this is due to change we believe with a future update.
- The JooJoo also has a standard headphone jack and a microphone jack.
- Front facing 2 megapixel camera for video conferencing – although we’ve yet to see this in action.
How does the JooJoo compare to the Apple iPad and other Tablet PCs?
Similarities…
The JooJoo’s design is not dissimilar from the iPad – very sleek with a full LCD screen front and brushed aluminium back.
Difference between the JooJoo and iPad…
These 2 devices come from 2 different schools of thought and are a country mile away from each other in effective implementation. The iPad has thousands or different applications on an ever expanding iPad App Store, the JooJoo gives you it’s browser and the web to explore.
As the JooJoo is simply a browser based tablet there are no built in apps for watching video, viewing photos or an ereader. For any of these tasks you’d rely on a web app. However, there aren’t any ereader web apps or those that let you upload your own feature films around currently. The device also doesn’t support external docs that use an application to view such as PDF docs/readers.
To view your photos on the JooJoo you’d need to upload your photos (via another PC) to a service such as Flickr then login to Flikr on the JooJoo to view them.
Flash is supported on the JooJoo so the “full” web is supported. Unfortunately reports suggest full screen playback of high definition YouTube videos can be very stuttery so for the time being you can opt to watch the straight playback of the YouTube non-Flash MPEG file outside of the browser – effectively a JooJoo hack. This only works on YouTube currently so on other sites you’ll be watching the video as you would in standard format and probably not on full screen. Fusion Garage has said that a recent software update has resolved the full screen HD issues.
Watching too much Flash video can seriously harm your battery life with some tests giving only 2.5 hours battery life when tested with moderate use such as surfing the web and watching some video. Apparently you can get up to 5 hours if you avoid Flash but if you’re prepared to do that then why not buy an entry level iPad for the same price and get a tonne of extra functionality, a user interface that works, access to a huge application infrastructure and around 10 hours battery life?
However, the JooJoo allows multitasking which the iPad currently doesn’t. This is expected to change with the next operating system upgrade to the iPad that’s coming soon. What this means on the JooJoo is that you can watch a video on YouTube while you access your email or Twitter for example.
In comparison to tablet PCs we’re expecting on the market soon (such as the ICD Gemini Tablet PC), we’re also missing the following on the JooJoo…
- An SD Card Reader for loading your pictures off your camera and onto the tablet – as above not relevant to this tablet
- Stereo speakers – the JooJoo has a single speaker
- Dual Digital Mics – for picking up ambient noise – the JooJoo only has a single mic
- MicroUSB connectivity to PCs or peripherals – allowing you to connect to a printer for example
- Rear facing camera for taking pictures
That said, the above is a wish list of what we’ve been told we could expect – no manufacturer has actually delivered it yet.
How do I browse the internet on the JooJoo Tablet PC?
The JooJoo is all about browsing the web, in fact it’s the only thing it’s about. A big restriction though is that it currently doesn’t support a 3G connection, meaning if you’re not in a Wi-Fi enabled spot then this is a pretty heavy useless slab to be lugging around.
The buggy browser implementation mentioned above also means that surfing via Wi-Fi is not massively pleasurable either – this could be improved with future software updates. See the Engadget article for more details on this.
Fusion Garage have said that a 3G enabled JooJoo tablet will be available in under 3 months and also directly from mobile operators.
What are the problems with the JooJoo Tablet PC?
Look above – far too many. Mostly poor software and apart from a very large screen, Flash and multitasking, pretty much everything else is done better on the most basic iPad for the same price.
How do I buy a JooJoo Tablet PC?
They’re available here directly from Fusion Garage on www.thejoojoo.com
What is the price of the JooJoo Tablet PC?
$499 in the US
£319 in the UK
JooJoo Tablet PC Overview
Rating 1 out of 5
Avoid this Tablet PC for the time being. Fusion Garage have done well to launch a product but it’s too expensive for what you get even if everything worked fantastically… and unfortunately it doesn’t. An iPad beats it hands down. It offers differentiation in Flash and multitasking but there are a lot of concerns on the buggy implementation. The software needs a significant update and we need a reason to pay this much.
Please let us know if you have any comments or own a JooJoo and have any feedback for us.
Image Source: Engadget
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