The JooJoo Diaries: Day 5

It's the end of the line I'm afraid, as this will be the last instalment of the JooJoo diaries before we publish the full product test. Today, it's time to take a look as the Fusion Garage tablet's multimedia functions.

Day 5: Multimedia or Monomedia?

Dear JooJoo diary,

The time has come to say goodbye. But before we come over all emotional, I'd like to have a quick word about multimedia. Among the many functions of the JooJoo, one of the most interesting, and perhaps even the most attractive, has got to be how it cleverly adapts YouTube to the tablet's format. Around two billion videos are viewed each and every day on this video sharing website, and the site lends itself perfectly to use on the JooJoo. You start up YouTube by pressing the dedicated JooJoo YouTube icon on the homescreen. You'll even see a JooJoo logo appear before the YouTube logo, just to prove how complementary the two really are.
Then, just press on the video you want to watch. You'll have to wait a short time for the video to buffer, but this is pretty fast, even for high-quality (HQ) videos. The video then displays in the full size of the JooJoo's 12.1-inch screen, and the extrapolation is, quite frankly, excellent. Only a few videos maintain the 4:3 format. It's a shame this great example of site compatibility hasn't been extended to other video-sharing sites like Dailymotion, on which loading a similar video proves more problematic (in SD and HD).



Another thing that's very nice to see is Flash compatibility, as Flash is pretty widespread on the web these days. In fact, content on many sites can only be viewed in Flash Player, from videos, to Flash games, to fancy intros and interactive graphics. This means that with The Other Tablet, you won't be able to get the best out of sites as varied as BBC News and Cadbury.co.uk, not to mention the Flash videos here on DigitalVersus. With the JooJoo, however, web browsing is completely unrestricted. Plus, as JooJoo creator Chandrasekhar Rathakrishnan is only too keen to remind us, Flash compatibility also means Flash games. Sounds great, doesn't it?



Well, no actually, it's not so great, as even if all Flash games are indeed compatible with the JooJoo, the on-screen keyboard has no directional keys (i.e. no arrow keys). You'll therefore have to seek out the very few Flash games that don't require directional controls. You'll also have to keep the JooJoo in its vertical position, as the keyboard takes up way too much room when you use it horizontally.

And so, on this rather disappointing note, we bid farewell to the JooJoo diaries.

> The JooJoo Diaries: Day 1

> The JooJoo Diaries: Day 2

> The JooJoo Diaries: Day 3

> The JooJoo Diaries: Day 4

> Touchscreen Tablet Reviews: the iPad and the rest

> Buyer's Guides: Our Pick of The Best Products