Hasta La Gadget!

We hate to be the bringers of bad news, but it looks like the Archos 9 might be serving as a bit of a morality tale, showing why and how PC hardware and software might not be quite ready for the large form factor tablet experience. That’s not to say there aren’t some plusses to the device pointed out by UMPC Portal in its review, like the great build quality and style of the tablet, the sensitive, flush touchscreen, and some great connectivity, but the sum seems less than its parts. The primary blame can be laid at the feet of the 1.1GHz Atom Z510 processor, which is sluggish and single-threaded, and Windows 7 Starter, which is lacking in the standard Windows 7 tablet functionality. We don’t know all the reasoning at play here, but the result is a slow computer with a hacked-on touchscreen keyboard at a $550 pricepoint that doesn’t the hit handheld UMPC size sweetspot and can hardly stand against a netbook in cost or utility. Sounds kind of mean when we say it like that, doesn’t it?

Archos 9 reviewed: too big, too slow, too ‘Starter’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Dec 2009 20:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Up until now, the only official shot of the Joojoo tablet was that seductive snippet of the corner. ‘Course, you got a pretty good look of the thing if you bothered to watch our sit-down with Fusion Garage’s Chandra Rathakrishnan, but it’s still a pleasing sight to see the company push out a nice gallery of press shots to really tickle the senses. We aren’t exactly sure if these guys have Cameron’s approval to use Avatar screen shots to promote their product, but at this point, we wouldn’t put anything regarding the Joojoo beyond the realm of feasibility. Oh, and if you were wondering how you’d eventually use this thing as an at-home movie viewer, the $29.99 dock accessory pictured above is the answer. One word of caution, however: given all the drama surrounding this thing, use that pre-order button at your own risk.

P.S. – Our good pal Chippy is suggesting that the only possible CPU / GPU tandem that could result in the claimed 1080p support and 5 hours of battery life is the Atom Z530 and the GMA500, both from Intel. Hopefully we’ll hear something official in short order.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Joojoo tablet gets its first batch of press shots, $30 dock accessory originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 12 Dec 2009 12:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fusion Garage has finally come clean with its side of the story in regards to the CrunchPad debacle, and just unveiled its new Arrington-free version of the device: the Joojoo. The way Fusion Garage tells it, the device was already in the works at the time of the original TechCrunch post about the idea, and that Michael Arrington and co. made zero contributions to the development of the device — and apparently don’t have any sort of contract to prove otherwise. The device is much along the lines of what we’d been hearing: it runs a UNIX-based OS, boots straight to a web browser (otherwise no apps at all), weighs about 2.4 pounds and features a 12.1-inch capacitive touchscreen. There are no physical buttons on the slate outside of the on-off switch, which taps into a 9 second boot time. Under the hood there’s a 4GB SSD, WiFi (no 3G), an accelerometer and about 5 hours of battery life. Pre-orders start on December 11th, with a dream-shattering $499 pricetag bringing this thing back into the realm of reality. We’re supposed to see demos of the Joojoo in the wild this week, and another shot of the device can be found after the break.

Continue reading Fusion Garage Joojoo tablet rises from the ashes of the CrunchPad

Fusion Garage Joojoo tablet rises from the ashes of the CrunchPad originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 12:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Archos has already made it abundantly clear that its Windows 7-based Archos 9 media player is US-bound, but just in case you were worried over legalities, this FCC filing should crank your stress level down a notch. Best of all, this particular entry includes external and internal photographs, meaning that the camera-toting employees within the deep, dark FCC labs are actually credited with handling the (admittedly messy) dissection. Shocking pixels await you in the read link, so make sure you go in fully prepared.

[Via jkkmobile]

Filed under: Handhelds

Archos 9 PMP sneaks into the FCC, gets dissected when caught originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 14 Nov 2009 09:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NVIDIA just hit us with more info on that mysterious tablet Jen-Hsun Huang was pictured with yesterday, and the truth is just as we’d assumed: it’s a Tegra prototype from an ODM called ICD that’s being “actively” shopped to carriers around the world. Sorry, folks, no Apple involvement here — although we’re sure Jen-Hsun would enthusiastically embrace that possibility.

As far as the ICD tablet goes, we’re waiting for official confirmation on specs, but we got a credible tip this morning suggesting that it’s currently running Windows CE with a resistive touchscreen, and that both Android and capacitive upgrades are in the cards, as well as multiple screen sizes. We’re also told that the goal is a March 2010 launch and that T-Mobile might be involved, but we wouldn’t take any of that to the bank until we hear for real — stay tuned.

Filed under: Handhelds, Tablet PCs

NVIDIA tablet mystery solved: an ODM Tegra prototype originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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