The proverbial cat has been let out of the bag as it has been revealed that mystery company TabCo is actually Fusion Garage, makers of the defunct JooJoo tablet. The company introduced two new products today during a “live” webcast, the Grid 10 tablet and the Grid 4 smartphone.
The Grid 10 tablet features a dual-core Nvidia Tegra II processor operating at 1.2GHz, 512MB of RAM and 16GB of storage. Highlights of the device include a high-resolution 1366 x 768 display and a custom Grid OS based on an Android kernel.
Grid OS is not a reskin of Android, but a new OS completely, says Chander Rathakrishnan, CEO of Fusion Garage. The OS features Bing integration, which the company claims is better than the default Google search bundled with most Android products.
As the name suggests, the home screen of the device is based on a grid map used to organize clusters, or folders.
TabCo kicked off a marketing campaign earlier this summer with promises to revolutionize the tablet industry. Multiple teaser videos have been released over the past few months, mostly poking fun at Apple’s successful iPad. But why did Fusion Garage go through all of the trouble of creating an expensive ad campaign under a fake company name?
Fusion Garage’s JooJoo tab was a complete failure and as such, the brand was likely tarnished in the eyes of consumers. Rathakrishnan noted in the webcast that he wanted to hype Grid 10 as an exciting new product without the association of Fusion Garage and JooJoo. He wanted customers to judge the product itself, not build an opinion based on Fusion Garage’s past.
The 16GB Wi-Fi only Grid 10 sells for $499 while a 3G-enabled model can be yours for $599. Pre-orders are being accepted now on Fusion Garage’s website with units scheduled to ship September 15. Furthermore, anyone that bought a JooJoo tablet will be provided a Grid 10 free of charge.
