HardwareCrunchPad 'joojoo' is $499, For Sale on Friday.
Michael Arrington"s dream to create a low cost touch screen tablet for surfing from the couch turns into the $499 web tablet named joojoo.
Last week Michael Arrington announced the death of the CrunchPad. Arrington said the device was killed by "greed and jealousy" as he explained that, just three days before the launch date, the CEO of their partner on the project said his company would be launching the CrunchPad alone, without the TechCrunch crew. A few days later Chandra Rathakrishnan"s people said the Chief Executive would address these claims at a demo on Monday.
As promised, Chandra showed off the web tablet yesterday and during the demonstration, also gave his side of the story with regard to who betrayed whom.
Chandra explained his side of events and said when it came to cutting Michael Arrington and the TechCrunch guys out of the project, it was all because of broken promises. According to the L.A. Times:
Michael made many promises suggesting he will deliver on hardware, software and funding, none of which came true. We had to move on. [Fusion Garage] did the hardware. We had made the software. And we had secured the funding. Michael did not deliver on his promises, and we decided to move on our own.
As for the product, it looks quite impressive until you hear how much they"re charging for it. With a 12.1-inch capacitive touchscreen and, according to Slashgear, a microphone, headphone and power port, and memory card slot, the joojoo slate looks very sleek. Throw in a boot time of just 9 seconds and it"s the casual couch-surfer"s dream machine. Unfortunately the price of $499 for a touch screen tablet with only WiFi in terms of connectivity (no 3G here) seems a little pricey.
The joojoo site has the device as "premiering at midnight PST, Friday 11th, December 2009," but SG reports that the first delivers won"t ship for another 8-10 weeks.
Who"s wants one?
*Image credit: CNet
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