Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"The CrunchPad, a highly anticipated 12-inch tablet computer that was named as one of the 10 "most brilliant products" of this year by Popular Mechanics magazine, re-emerged yesterday as the Joo Joo. A legal battle over the Web-surfing device, no matter what its name, is likely to come. The Joo Joo — an African term for "magical," its developer says "because this device delivers magic" — will cost $499, putting it well above the $300 to $400 price range initially envisioned for the tablet by TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington."

The current drama aside, I think a low priced tablet in this size is a killer product. But, I consider this a proof of concept. Regardless, I don't see this being the product that hits it big. My bet is on Apple, whenever they get around to releasing their tablet, if the price is right. If it isn't, netbook makers should be able to pretty quickly come up with some tablet offerings using their current components and probably undercut both on price. If you'd like to see the Joo Joo in action, check out Engadget's Hands On.

"Our plan was to debut the CrunchPad on stage at the Real-Time Crunchup event on November 20, a little over a week ago. We even hoped to have devices hacked together with Google Chrome OS and Windows 7 to show people that you could hack this thing to run just about anything you want. We’d put 1,000 of the devices on pre-sale and take orders immediately. Larger scale production would begin early in 2010. And then the entire project self destructed over nothing more than greed, jealousy and miscommunication."

Too bad. This will be litigated out and we will probably still see this product. But I'm betting there will be some competitors, possibly even a tablet from Apple. But if they can still get this out at $300, it could do for the tablet arena what the netbook did to the notebook market.