When Fusion Garage invited us down to their Singapore office yesterday for a look at the JooJoo tablet, we went with the assumption that they would be showing us the final software running on actual production hardware. As it happens, we were shown the same device that the company used for its launch back in December.
Nevertheless, I had a chance to speak with founder and CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan, and was able to confirm additional information on the company’s plans, and about the device itself.
One of the first questions that we asked was whether Fusion Garage intends to modify its price in the wake of Apple’s launch of the iPad last week. The answer is no, the company has not changed its plans. “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” Rathakrishnan told Ars. He is also confident that competition will not result in decreased sales for the JooJoo, noting that “The market is big enough for more than Apple.”
In fact, the company claims that it has enjoyed an increase in visibility thanks to increased awareness generated by the iPad, which it says has already resulted in more inquiries and preorders.
The obvious comparison
The biggest differentiating factors between the JooJoo and iPad are the former's 12.1-inch 1366x768 capacitive screen, x86 Atom processor, Linux-based oS 1.3 megapixel camera located on the front of the device, and the presence of a USB port. We confirmed that the USB port will support the HID (Human Interface Device) class out-of-the-box, which means that USB-based keyboards and mice will work by default. We plugged the nano transceiver from a Microsoft Wireless mouse into the JooJoo to test, and were able to use it to navigate the JooJoo. But no mouse is needed: the JooJoo is designed to be operated completely via the use of gestures.
Rathakrishnan was enthusiastic about the hardware that powers the JooJoo; the design was obviously something he took pride in. To underscore the engineering feat, he told me, “We have managed to pack in more hardware profiles than the iPad without compromising on sleekness [of the JooJoo].” He was referring to the thickness of the JooJoo here, which measures between 0.2 inch and 0.7 inch—while sporting a larger screen. The Apple iPad is 0.5-inch thick with a 9.7-inch display.
Rathakrishnan reiterated that the JooJoo boots up in 9 seconds, touting that as the fastest boot-up time of its class. Without elaborating, Rathakrishnan told me that the final version of the JooJoo will have a suspend mode similar to that of the iPhone.
Unlike the iPad, the JooJoo comes with only 802.11 b/g for wireless connectivity, though the company’s official stance is that it is not discounting the possibility of a 3G model down the line. We were able to confirm that any 3G model will come with the radio built into the same chassis.
The JooJoo will ship by end of February in the United States. Gadget heads from other parts of the globe will likely have to wait till the middle of the year when the JooJoo will be made available in “major markets” around the world. Given that Fusion Garage is a start-up, there are likely to be concerns about its ability to manufacture sufficient quantities of the JooJoo. To alleviate such concerns, Fusion Garage says it has secured a partnership with CSL Group of Malaysia. In effect, the relationship with this OEM will eliminate all upfront manufacturing costs to the company in return for a small royalty for every JooJoo sold.
Conclusion
Fusion Garage does not appear fazed by the litigation it's facing, or the imminent arrival of the iPad. However, there's still a lot riding on the completion of the JooJoo software, and it's a bit troubling that we were looking at the prototype software less than four weeks before its US launch. Fusion Garage claims that the software is now “closer to the 90 percent mark" and says it will meet its target for shipping.
But while a breakneck pace of development effort is certainly expected with such a category-defining device as the JooJoo, Fusion Garage is cutting it really thin. One factor that US readers may not be aware of is that that a major holiday—the Chinese New Year—starts in just over a week (February 14). While Taiwan (the JooJoo is manufactured there) does not experience multiweek factory shutdowns like China, the Chinese New Year is nevertheless a holiday season akin to the Christmas-New Year day break in the West.
Should Fusion Garage be able to keep to its schedule, the JooJoo will beat the iPad to market by a few weeks. Unfortunately, we don't know how good the final product will be, as we're still at the point of playing with prototypes under the guidance of the company. In a world without the iPad, the JooJoo with its simple interface and "browser-based operating system" could be a compelling product. Apple's decision to play in the tablet space has changed the equation, and JooJoo has long, uphill road ahead of it.
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