Fusion Garage’s second tablet has predictive intelligence

While JooJoo may be dead and buried, Singapore-based Fusion Garage isn’t. They’ve even showed signs of life by recently raising a new round of funding and launching their second tablet — the Grid 10 — in the US.

Granted, the Fusion Garage-TechCrunch fallout generated a lot of controversy (see SGE’s coverage here) and the JooJoo received overwhelmingly negative reviews, but this new tablet has so far gotten a more measured response from the media (see other stories here, here, and here).

Well, we can’t fault them for trying again — the Grid 10 does have some things going for it. The most immediate thing about this tablet that hits you is that apps shortcuts are displayed in clusters on an infinite expanse of grids that you can navigate using your fingers or a mini-map. This is something no other tablets are doing, and it actually looks pretty. I’m not sure how easy it is to use it though, as users may get lost in the sea of grids.

Predictive intelligence is another prominent feature. For instance, suppose you look up an appointment you have on the tablet’s calender. There’s a ‘smart window’ that actually lets you look up the location on a map, or offer recommendations for where you might go for lunch.

Or, say you search ‘Lady Gaga’ in the web browser. The app brings up more than your typical search results, it even provides links to an online album store to purchase the movie, a link to the ‘Lady Gaga’ Wikipedia page, a shortcut that allows you to play any Lady Gaga songs stored on your tablet, and more. While this sounds useful, whether users bite will depend on how relevant the recommendations are.

The tablet runs on the Grid OS, which is actually based on the Android kernal. This means that you can use your favorite Android apps with this device, but you can’t download them directly from the Android Market, at least not yet. You can, however, download apps from Amazon’s Appstore and other places. We’re not sure if any compatability issues will crop up though.

For now, Grid 10 is only available in the US via the online store. A smartphone version, called the Grid 4, will be available soon. The WiFi + 3G version debuts at US$599, while the WiFi version costs US$499.

We’re not sure if this product is enough to reverse Fusion Garage’s fortunes, so we’ll see.

Comments