Fusion Garage’s JooJoo is a lightweight tablet with a 12.1 inch screen that is very bright and responsive. The JooJoo runs an in-house developed operating system from Fusion Garage, not Android like many recently released tablets. This custom operating system is extremely fast, booting in about 9 seconds with services becoming instantly usable.
The JooJoo’s home screen is divided into three sections: Be connected, Be Informed, and More apps. Be Connected is the social aspect of the JooJoo having services such as Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. Be Informed is essentially a news section, showing headlines from The New York Times, Reuters, and CNN. More Apps links to services such as Google Docs, Hulu, and Yahoo. The layout seems fine, but the background is very odd, changing color between harsh tones of red, purple, green and yellow, all of which are distracting and subtract from the usability of the tablet. There is an option to change the background to plain white all of the time, but that should be the default compared to these bright, distracting colors.
The user interfaced design by Fusion Garage for the JooJoo tablet makes it very easy to use. Besides the icons mentioned before, there is a URL bar that sits at the top of the screen, allowing users to tap on it to bring up a virtual keyboard in order to type in the address of the website they want to visit. A nifty feature of this URL bar is the shortcut to Google Maps, where users can just type in an address and click Google Maps and get directions to said address instantly. The JooJoo is built for using the web, and comes complete with full Flash support. Outside of the actual tablet interface, they have skimped, only giving users a couple of external ports to use. It has a standard headphone and microphone jack, along with a solitary USB port.
With a custom OS, there are not many possibilities for third party apps, making this a what you see is what you get purchase. If all you want is to use web apps and use it on your Wi-Fi connection, it will be great, otherwise it is not a smart purchase. With the many alternatives on the market, it would be worth it to check them out before purchasing the JooJoo.
Elliott Lee, May 11, 2011
Is there going to be a video review added?