JooJoo review – Buy an iPad instead!
The Apple iPad currently only has one real rival in the emerging tablet market – the JooJoo from Fusion Garage. The rest are all either old-skool tablets, too expensive, or still months away from release. But is the JooJoo any competition to the Apple tablet?
It would seem the definitive answer to that is a big fat NO.
The iPad was released on April 3 after a short presale. And Apple is thought to have already sold around 500,000 units of the tablet device. The JooJoo was released at the beginning of the same week as the iPad (surely a bad idea) and has not sold quite as well, to say the very least. In fact, Fusion Garage may have sold as few as 100 JooJoos prior to launch.
Which explains why there is a distinct lack of reviews on the Web so far. If no one has one, no one can or will review it. Engadget has reviewed the JooJoo though, and the results aren’t exactly pleasing.
Aesthetically pleasing is about as good as it gets, with a whole host of problems, issues, and frustrations cataloged. Its 12.8-inch screen is too large, and it’s too heavy at 2.4-pounds. Video chat failed, viewing angles are atrocious, and the accelerometer is kooky. The UI is a mess, the finger controls are bizarre, and typing is a chore. And Flash support, touted as a reason to choose the JooJoo over the iPad, is wonky, so much so that Adobe has now distanced itself from the device.
If the JooJoo was priced at $250 then maybe it would be a goer. But it’s not, it costs $499, the same as the basic model iPad. So what reason would anyone have to buy a JooJoo over an iPad?
Some of the issues outlined above can and will be fixed in future firmware upgrades, but that won’t help solve the hardware issues. And neither will it bring the price down.
I wanted the JooJoo to be a real contender to the iPad – despite the way Fusion Garage went about excluding TechCrunch from the venture – because Apple will only improve its product if there is competition. But it looks as though the JooJoo is currently a non-starter.
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April 11th, 2010
[...] being what so many seem to want, a 16:9 format display, a USB port and a camera, it doesn’t quite make it. It turns out the JooJoo is actually quite a turd. The Engadget video review is [...]
April 15th, 2010
PCmag reviewed it too. Guess how that review went?
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2362376,00.asp
April 28th, 2010
[...] for us, we’re following the advice of this JooJoo reviewer and buying an additional iPad for the [...]
June 9th, 2010
I can’t agree more with this review. I just got a JooJoo (I already have an iPad) and I am ASHAMED to admit that I spent $500 on it! The screen is unresponsive half the time. The wireless connectivity is lame – it can’t hold a connection to my router which works great with every other device in my house. I have been trying now for 2 hours to get and maintain a connection. The design may be intuitive but the tablet is so buggy it is hard to appreciate the design. On top of all that, the device is quite heavy and larger than what is comfortable to hold. I will stick with my iPad and will look for some unsuspecting niece or nephew to pawn this brick off onto. I should have had a V8 and I should have bought an(other) iPad!
June 16th, 2010
I bought one too, and I think it has great potential. Yes it is a bit heavy, you have to get used to it, and sometimes you have to be a little patient before it comes back to life, but surfing the web is fun. It is multitasking in the sense that the chosen websites keep doing their thing, so you can listen to music playing on one website, and do your mail on another. (Not all websited will work). It works very well with my router. The software has already improved.
I did not want to have just a bigger iPod. I thought the iPad was disappointing in that respect, by not being more than what I already own. And I do like the JooJoo’s wide screen for watching movies. And it looks really good too!