Remember the JooJoo tablet made by Fusion Garage? Quite the performer wasn’t it? Today in a somewhat surprise announcement, (outspoken) Fusion Garage CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan unveiled that not only was the TabCo company more or less a proxy for a Fusion Garage reboot as well as two new flagship products: the Grid 4 smartphone and Grid 10 tablet. But before you get ideas of a JooJoo 2 in your head, we must say that at least on paper and from images we’ve seen thus far, the Grid devices actually look pretty slick. More after the break…
Grid 4
Built off of an Android core, the Grid 4 smartphone looks as many other high-end smartphones do these days — large 4″ 800 x 480 display, 1 GHz dual-core Tegra 2 processor, front and rear-facing cameras and 16 GB of internal storage. Those looking for a phone free of carrier deals will be pleased to know the Grid 4 comes at a rather reasonable $399 without any required cellular contract. Public consumption is slated for Q4 of this year.
Grid 10
Moving on up, the company’s Grid 10 tablet makes use of…you guessed it…a 10″ display, but packs a slightly higher resolution 1366 x 768 resolution and now standard 1 GHz dual-core Tegra 2 processor as well. Pricing is set at $399 for the WiFi-only version while adding 3G will bring this up to $499. Amazon is already accepting pre-orders if you’re interested.
What’s most surprising, however, are claims that any first-gen JooJoo owners will be able to pick up a new Grid 10 for free. Which leads us to our next point…
The Grid OS
The Grid OS/interface is hands down the nicest, most unique Android “skin” we’ve seen yet. Think of it as a sort of Windows Phone 7 tiles interface on steroids — massive amounts at that. On both the Grid 4 smartphone and Grid 10 tablet, users will be able to completely customize the user interface into groups or as Fusion Garage explains it, “clusters”, that span across an infinite amount of space. No more static “homescreens”.
Another nod to their Cupertino idols — more on that in a minute — is evident by the Grid OS’ heavy reliance on gesture input. Further bolstering the new ecosystem will be a new “Grid Shop” that will feature Grid OS specific apps. According to Rathakrishnan, stock Android apps will be compatible with Grid.
Copycat?
In all the good news, however, there is a somewhat odd stance being taken by Chandra Rathakrishnan. While the company has since moved from an in-house OS to using a heavily customized build of Android, Rathakrishnan outwardly criticizes Google for making Android nothing more than a “copycat” OS. He goes on further stating that Apple is the true innovator in the mobile space and that everyone should use their products as a benchmark. Finally for good measure, Rathakrishnan adds that all current Android partners such as Samsung, Motorola, HTC, etc are playing a mere “skin game” in regards to releasing very similar hardware with minor changes in software.
With that said we find it highly ironic that Rathakrishnan would so heavily criticize the OS that is saving his company after their first attempt at a tablet failed miserably. Not only that, as much as we like what we see with the new Grid interface, it too is more or less another skin — a very heavily customized one we might add. At the end of the day they both use the same core Android kernel.
But hey, we won’t beat the guy (or company) up too much. Fusion Garage part 2 is looking pretty good from where we’re sitting.
Source: Fusion Garage
