There are just so many things we wish Fusion Garage did differently with the JooJoo. Even putting aside the fact that Apple's $499 iPad brings more to the table than just web browsing, the JooJoo is less portable, has a worse (if larger) screen, is unintuitive to use, and ships with half-baked software. We commend the start-up on its nice piece of hardware design, but until the software is given some much-needed love and the price is seriously reevaluated we simply cannot recommend this tablet. To add insult to injury, Apple's entry level iPad provides a much more seamless and feature-packed experience, and there are plenty of $199-ish ARM-based tablets just around the corner. We told you it was terrible timing. The one shining light we can see is that Fusion Garage has actually managed to finish and build this thing, which is a lot more than can be said for the dozens of ARM / Tegra / Fairy dust-powered, Android / Linux / CE-based tablet prototypes we've seen in the wild.

First, Fusion Garage would like to remind the world that its first-generation tablet is still for sale. This is the $499, Atom-powered, 12.1-inch wide-screen tablet that the company first showed off in December. Don't buy it. The hardware is out of date. And even with its improved firmware and bespoke OS, it's sluggish and frustrating to use, and it can't play Flash HD video smoothly in full-screen view. Why have a gigantic display if not to play video? Battery life is horrendous. My sample wound down in just a few hours--and that was in standby mode.