
The JooJoo is here... seriously - icey
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/01/the-joojoo-is-here-seriously/
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richcollins
It looks much nicer than I was expecting. I'm glad to see that Apple's success
is causing other companies to take design seriously.

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frou_dh
As serious as "what would Apple do?" can be considered? ;-)

(device, not packaging)

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lurkinggrue
I bet they sell dozens of them.

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somebear
A bit more, but not much [1].

[1]: <http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/03/joojoo-preorders/>

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padmanabhan01
I don't mean it as a criticism, but the hardware design has all that we have
come to associate with a typical apple product. The polished aluminium body,
the black margins, etc etc including the packaging. Hope the software is not
so blatantly inspired too from mac/iPhone OS

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wmf
No, the software is blatantly inspired by Palm WebOS. :-)

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SamAtt
They added a video with a little 4 minute mini-review. It looks decent but not
really polished. The accelerometer doesn't show the screen turn for example it
just goes black and then comes back on reoriented. It also seemed like it was
a little unresponsive in that he often had to swipe several times to get the
menu up.

I don't know. It doesn't look bad but having seen it in action I'm more
determined to wait and see what companies like Asus and HP will be coming out
with.

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cfpg
Those problems are software based, which can be fixed with an update.

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potatolicious
> _"which can be fixed with an update."_

Yes, but what are the odds of that happening?

I don't mean whether or not it will get an update - I'm sure it will - but
whether or not they will ever go back and re-do significant amounts of
engineering for usability.

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SamAtt
I'm not even sure it'll get an update.

They'd only sold 75 as of the end of February and only 12 of those in the
month of February itself (it went on sale at the beginning of January and the
iPad was announced at the end of January). I find it hard to believe sales
recovered all that much in March.

So if I'm Fusion Garage's backers I'm looking for a jump in sales after it
ships (because people will at least know it's not vaporware at that point). If
that doesn't happen I think they bail at which point that joojoo is as good as
it's going to get.

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alain94040
I'm a big Apple fan and I must say that this looks very cool as well. Great
job. Love the backstory too with the CrunchPad :-)

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aresant
Building this on a proprietary platform, instead of a customized version of
Android, is what is going to kill JooJoo, not the iPad.

Trying to support a proprietary OS and convince developers to build for an
unproven platform (is this even possible with JooJoo?) put the nails in their
coffin before they even started.

Hopefully they have the budget to live out that mistake and relaunch because
their hardware looks slick, and they have some interesting UI / OS ideas that
I think could catch on.

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frou_dh
It's simply a web browser device, not a platform waiting for developers.

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aresant
I don't know why anybody would part with $500 for a JooJoo in that case.

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frou_dh
Of course! iPad has shut the door on the remotest chance that JooJoo wouldn't
bomb hard.

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maxharris
<http://www.engadget.com/photos/joojoo-unboxing/#2855943>

This thing reeks of unprofessionality:

"...anywhere, anytime. Now, the internet is yours to enjoy on the go..."

Notice the extraneous comma after "Now"? A professional would have caught that
before they printed their materials.

"joojoo. Our name means magic. Experience it."

Sounds like a 12-year-old saw an Apple ad and and wrote this second-rate copy.

<http://www.engadget.com/photos/joojoo-unboxing/#2855958>: Notice the
unsightly arc that makes room for the audio jacks? Apple doesn't put ugly
lines like that into their physical products (old brushed-metal Quicktime
player aside). Betcha that the joojoo bozos thought they were being clever
when they came up with this horror.

I should also say that Arrington probably wouldn't have done any better (he's
a bozo too - just an "idea guy" with no ability to actually contribute
anything substantial).

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timmorgan
I must have pretty low standards -- I think it looks very professionally done.
Way beyond my expectations based on all the negative press these guys have
gotten.

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bbb
Yeah, doesn't look that bad to me either (but I'm getting an iPad, absolutely
no question for me since I'm already heavily invested in Apple tech).

What I find a lot more scary is this: <http://www.engadget.com/photos/joojoo-
unboxing/#2855956>

Vents? Seriously? Does it have a fan? Is it going to be noisy? Just imagine
all the crap that can fall in there, all the stuff that can get caught on it.

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wmf
The JooJoo is Atom-based; it's basically a netbook. It's probably a lot
higher-power than an ARM tablet.

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mbreese
I don't know about that... The current generation of ARM processors are pretty
fast. And you can't beat their performance per watt, so an ARM tablet will get
much better battery performance. So long as an ARM tablet can display video
well (which will require a dedicated chip for either) does it matter how much
faster the processor is? Especially when battery life is taken into
consideration?

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pmjordan
I suspect wmf meant "uses more power", not "is more computationally powerful".

