25 July,2010 07:13 AM IST | | Sowmya Rajaram
Thought the iPad was the only multi-touch touchscreen tablet? On the same weekend in April, JooJoo, another tablet controlled by a capacitive touchscreen, hit markets. Is the big J an iPad killer or just an Apple wannabe?
The JooJoo is NOT a Zoo Zoo cousin. It didn't just drop out of the skies, either. A product of Singapore-based Fusion Garage, it was originally scheduled for a December 2009 release, but delays and internal litigation meant it eventually went into head-on competition with the mighty iPad in April. How does it fare?
Read on.
Jumping Joojoos!
This Linux-based touchscreen tablet is essentially made for surfing the Internet. And that's where the biggest problem lies. Unlike the iPad, there's no way to work locally -- you can't open and save local documents. The premise is of a totally Internet-based lifestyle, which in itself may not be a bad idea, except that Internet connectivity and speeds aren't possible everywhere. Ask us in India, and we'll wag a finger at that incredibly-slow-to-load YouTube video, courtesy excruciatingly slow speeds and bad traffic.
The JooJoo has an impressive 12.1 inch display, but that also makes it
that much heavier to carry around
Speaking of Youtube, that's one place where the big J scores over the iPad. Remember that minor altercation Steve Jobs had with Adobe? Well that meant that Flash, which by definition meant most videos available on the web, weren't available to Apple users. But on the JooJoo, not only can you watch videos, you also enjoy the fact that it has a version of YouTube that enables certain videos on the site to be accelerated by its Ion graphics chip, making videos load really quickly. Do we hear you jump for joy?
An app a day keeps Apple at bay
Certainly not the JooJoo philosophy, or we would have had cool games to play instead of twiddling our thumbs waiting for an App store to juice up the deal. Word has it that a Web App Store is on its way, but given the fact that it runs on a custom operating system (OS) created by the folks at Fusion Garage, it's unlikely to have the awesome apps that independent developers have created for the iPhone.
The iPad has awesome apps that independent developers have created
for the iPhone
The good news though, is that unlike the iron clad locked-door policy that Apple follows, Fusion Garage is happy to let you tweak the device's OS to suit your convenience, as well as load it with entirely new operating systems in future models, CEO Chandra Rathakrishanan has said. Plus, a USB port gives the JooJoo a serious step-up in terms of multitasking. Yes Mr Jobs, we like being able to use devices without buying needless extras.
Rounding up
There are other differences too, like the JooJoo's 12.1-inch display and 1366 x 768 resolution vs the iPad's 9.7 inch display. The larger screen size (which has led some to refer to it as a longer version of the iPhone) makes the former a better bet for watching videos in landscape mode, but also makes it a whole lot heavier at 2.4 lbs, as compared to the 1.5lbs that the iPad weighs.
Add 3G connectivity, (Rathakrishanan has said we can expect it in a few months), juice up the display and battery life (forums have complaints about the battery running out with minimal operations in as little as five hours), add basic features like predictive text input,u00a0 first letter capitalisation, home screen notifications for new activity on social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter, and make it usable even offline, and we might consider it a worthy competitor. Until then though, $500 (approx Rs 23,700) seems like a pretty stiff price to pay for something that lacks the might of the Apple logo.
