The backlash is understandable, considering how people in the valley worship arrington and TC's influence, but after arrington's post yesterday, I really fail to see what's wrong with the device other then the fact that arrington is whining about it. He's pissed that they moved forward with the IP that they rightfully deserve, and everyone rushes to his defense? I'm pretty sick of listening to gossip.
I hear no discussion about the specs of the device. Let's discuss the merits of the device and other tablets like it. What can be improved? What can apple do better?
I would think it's to be expected from the the dwellers of a technology-startup oriented community to have a higher immunity to Arrington's charm than the average netizen.
The truth is probably that, had they not squandered their relationship with Arrington, and TC had announced, joyously, that pre-orders were available today. It would have been a land-slide victory - possibly even with the price change.
Classic geek-in-business mistake. You can create the greatest product in the world, but without top-notch marketing, it's nothing.
They underestimated the relationship between TC readers and this product. They will learn how much Arrington really did do for the "Crunchpad".
The JooJoo looks amazing but I'm not going to gamble by being an early adoption. When a company already has one lawsuit and their product is not shipping yet, I don't want to chance my $499. I could care less if the JooJoo makes Arrington cry nor do I want to chance my money on a pre-order on a product that may never see the light of day..
I'm going to wait for them to ship in 8 to 10 weeks and see what people say once they actually own the tablet. If it's as amazing as it looks, then I might have to buy one. If Chrome OS will run on the tablet then I'm even more apt to buy one because I trust that Google will keep their OS more up to date. For now, I'm going to not be an early adopter and take the safe road.
All of the product shots look like Photoshop mockups. Note the shadows and highlights and the pixelated edges around the simulated pictures on the device. When "real" vendors do this, there is always a disclaimer that says that the images are simulated.
I also doubt they licensed the image from Avatar to market their device. This is generally a no-no and with the attention it is getting, I expect they will get a C&D letter to take that off. Also does that mean it has a built in Torrent app? ;-)
In addition to that you don't really know what the market it going to look like 2 to 3 months from now when this ships. Apple, Asus, Dell and others could very well have a tablet in the market by then. So even if you were willing to chance losing your money entirely it wouldn't make sense to buy one of these.
The only payment option seems to be PayPal. Does anyone know what kind of buyer protection PayPal provides in case the payers never receive the device?
Careful - it looks like no protection. Italics mine:
> 13.2 What are the eligibility requirements for PayPal Buyer Protection? You must meet all of these requirements:
Use PayPal to purchase an eligible item
Pay for the full amount of the item with one payment. Items purchased with multiple payments – like a deposit followed by a final payment – are not eligible
Open a dispute within 45 days of the date you sent the payment – then follow the online dispute resolution process described below under Dispute Resolution
Keep your PayPal account in good standing
The events surrounding this device are unfortunate. It's pretty cool to me that a small company was able to build something that consumers seem to want but none of the big players have provided (yet). However, I'm still on the sideline till Apple releases their tablet. My main requirement is a modest level of synergy at the OS level because I don't live on web-apps. Certainly not everyone requires this but I do if I'm spending upwards of $500+. Had the joojoo launched at $200, I probably wouldn't be as picky about it.
For $200 you can't even buy a device that only does Twitter. I'm guessing the Apple tablet is going to be around $1K minimum, which will make this $500 (soon to be $400) tablet look like a bargain.
yeah, when TC announced $200 price for the crunchpad I thought it was a bit out of control considering AT&T covers about half the retail price of the iPhone.
i'm expecting to pay about 1-1.5k for the Apple tablet and i think i'll be fine with that if it delivers a great tablet experience, hopefully unlike Apple TV for the TV.
I found the website a bit lacking in terms of information. It feels hastily done.
1. I think most early adopters will be technical people, and so they need to put up more technical specs. They need more real photos and/or video of the device. They have no track record, so asking users to buy their device based on a few photoshop pics is asking for too much.
2. Although Paypal is the de facto payment method these days, having Paypal only payment makes it look like they haven't taken the time out to set up a credit card payment system.
3. Besides a feedback email, there's no customer service telephone line or contact of any sort. Seeing as they are selling a consumer product it would make their customers feel at ease about their purchase if they knew there was someone within easy reach is something goes wrong.
That being said, it looks like a nice device. I can't wait to see it in action.
Hmm, surprisingly a nice final product for such a messy inception. I'm definitely not going to be an early adopter of this, though. I still have more questions than answers about the product.
i updated the http://crunchpad.com page with a few extra reasons why I wouldn't buy:
#1. The only way to pre-order is with PayPal, and since PayPal Buyer Protection only lasts 45 days, and the JooJoo says "Pre-orders will ship in 8 to 10 weeks." that means if they "forget" to ship, you are out of luck.
#2: Every single image seems to be a rendering, not a single actual photo.
#3: They only sell to United States, yet they only use kilograms for weights, talk about amateur hour.
juju is on African word an it's normally associated with 'black' magic, hexes and stuff. It actually has a negative connotation in most African circles. So marketing it with the association to 'juju' in Africa would not be a good idea.
I hear no discussion about the specs of the device. Let's discuss the merits of the device and other tablets like it. What can be improved? What can apple do better?