CrunchPad set for launch this Friday as ‘JooJoo’

The tangled saga of the CrunchPad has taken another turn, with development partner Fusion Garage announcing its plans to launch the device – now christened JooJoo – this Friday.

But the Linux-powered touchscreen pad comes with a hefty sticker shock. The base model will sell for US$500, having steadily climbed up from the original expectations of US$300 and US$400.

The new price makes the CrunchPad – sorry, JooJoo – substantially more expensive than any netbook on the US market, and would be equivalent to at least $600 in Australia (allowing for GST but without any local markup, which would likely add at least another $100 to the final figure).

So just what do you get for your money? As expected, JooJoo marries a 12.1 inch capacitive touchscreen to a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor. It runs a Linux-based OS built around a Web browser as the primary application, which is similar in approach to Google Chrome OS.

Fusion Garage says JooJoo will boot into the browser in nine seconds from a cold start, with Wi-Fi for Net connectivity and a claimed five hours of battery life.

A single USB port will provide expansion options for devices such as a 3G wireless broadband modem, but there’s minimal storage on board – just a 4GB SSD module, primarily for the OS, basic apps and browser cache – and no SD memory card slot.

Even if you rush to place an order for the JooJoo, delivery isn’t expected for eight to ten weeks – which means buyers won’t have the touchpad in their paws until almost the end of February 2010.

That’s if it gets off the ground at all. Michael Arrington, who conceived of the CrunchPad and enlisted Fusion Garage to develop the actual device, intends to take legal action against Fusion Garage.

But with such a high price, lacklustre spec set and the continued rumours of Apple’s own touchscreen pad under development in the Cupertino skunkworks, JooJoo could already be dead in the water...