Everything We Know About the JooJoo (AKA Crunchpad) Tablet So FarS

The JooJoo, which used to be called the CrunchPad until its official unveiling this morning is a tablet. An internet tablet. But there are still a lot of things left uncertain. Here's what we do know.


1. It's called the JooJoo. Chandra, the CEO of Fusion Garage, says it's an "African term that stands for a magical device."

2. The JooJoo will be a web-only tablet. Basically, it's like Chrome OS in that everything is done with online webapps, but you use a touchscreen instead of a keyboard. You'll have a 4GB local cache for storage, but don't think of it as real storage.

3. There's a lot of controversy involved. Arrington of TechCrunch asserts one thing, while Chandra of Fusion Garage asserts another. The short of it is, Fusion Garage booted Arrington out of the process recently because they claim that Arrington failed to deliver any of the promises he was supposed to, like hooking them up with VC funding and helping to market the device.

Fusion Garage claims that there was no contract between the two parties, and Arrington says that it's basically "in the lawyers hands now".

4. Here are the specs: A screen-only tablet that measures 12-inches, has a capacitive touchscreen, runs its own operating system (that's basically just a browser) and boots in 9 seconds. It will also have a 5 hour battery life, run Wi-Fi only (no 3G) and come in only one color, with 4GB internal storage.

5. It will cost $500. Chandra said Arrington's claim of a $200 or $300 tablet was unfeasible and unrealistic, and compared it to smaller devices like the iPhone and netbooks.

6. It's going to be available for pre-order this Friday on their website.

7. Nobody in the tech community has seen it yet. We're going to get hands-on time with it soon, and will let you know how it feels firsthand.

8. The green screen shown in the webcast might be a trick of the camera. Chandra said, in the webcast, that there was nothing wrong with the screen, and that the colors look fine. But for a screen to look entirely green in a shot, it means that there might be seriously limited in its viewing angles.

9. We don't know when it will ship. Or even if it will ship, seeing as there's litigation between Fusion Garage and TechCrunch over it. So you might want to hold on to that $500 until they figure out when the device will launch.

10. No matter what, there's some bad feelings involved with the device. If Arrington is in the right—even if it is just ethically or spiritually and not legally—you may have a hard time justifying to yourself that you're giving money to a company that did something underhanded. But if Arrington is in the wrong, you still have the tinge of weirdness hanging in the air when you're using it.

And isn't Apple about to dump one of these on the market next year?