Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

The CrunchPad is back from the dead but with a different name. Now the JooJoo, the tablet is scheduled for pre-orders on Friday under the Fusion Garage name. Fusion Garage held a video call for reporters and analysts Monday morning to make the announcement to move ahead with the launch without TechCrunch.

Fusion Garage claims they have every right to sell this without TechCrunch’s approval, despite what TechCrunch founder, Michael Arrington’s, earlier blog post stated. Beginning on Friday, the JooJoo will be available on pre-order for $499 through theJooJoo.com.

If you are unfamiliar with the Crunch… I mean JooJoo, it is a 12.1-inch touchscreen tablet computer. It only has one button and that is the power button, the remaining inputs are all done through touch based input. For text input, the JooJoo has an on-screen keyboard that, like any other touch screen device, can disappear when not in use. The device can also switch between portrait and landscape mode like an iPod.

The device runs on a Unix based operating system that boots directly into the browser much like Chrome OS. Fusion Garage also claims that the JooJoo can display full HD video. It runs on a 4GB solid state drive that is used solely for storing cached information from the browser. Pretty much meaning you can do offline work when you don’t have a signal.

In case you didn’t get this from the rest of the article, the JooJoo is meant mainly for web browsing, email, video sharing, and can double as an e-reader as well. Fusion Garage claims that they are working with other companies to bring special, 3rd party software like tablet versions of various popular magazines.

Honestly, if I had $500 laying around, I would pre-order this the first day it comes available, aka, Friday. Even though it was pretty much stolen right out from under the hands of the developers, I still feel that buying this shows appreciation for the one and a half years of hard work they put into it. So in appreciation for the CrunchPad, I would get a JooJoo.

Read [PCWorld]