joojoo review

You'd think that with multitouch support, the joojoo would have implemented pinch to zoom, but no - it's nowhere in sight. In fact, there's no way of zooming in and out of pages at all. And, despite that impressive JavaScript performance there are some websites that noticeably slow the speed at which you can scroll pages. Load up Gmail, for instance, and that slick scrolling you were enjoying suddenly becomes treacle-wadingly frustrating. It’s also disappointing that full-screen streaming video isn’t very smooth: iTunes and BBC iPlayer both work flawlessly when viewed embedded in a web page, but even though the former is hardware-accelerated, both slow to a juddery mess when maximised.

Our final complaint, and possibly the most significant blow to the joojoo's potential thus far, is that its size just tips it over the edge from usefulness to awkwardness. Where the iPad feels chuck-in-a-bag light - a device that's easy to simply tuck under your arm - the joojoo is anything but. Pick up a joojoo and its 1.1kg weight is liable to have you straining straight away. On paper it doesn't look that big or heavy, but this combined with its 325mm-wide body means it doesn't feel as convenient or immediate.

That, combined with weak battery life (we timed four hours idle at the home screen, connected to a Wi-Fi network before the joojoo gave out), dents the joojoo's iPad-alternative credentials far more than its lack of apps ever could have. It is cheaper, we'll give it that, and its support for Flash does set it apart, but the joojoo tablet just isn't good enough to challenge Apple's finest.