Reviews

Fusion Garage Grid10 review: First Look

When is an Android tablet not an Android tablet? When Fusion Garage revamps the open source operating system for its upcoming Grid10 tablet.

14 Sep 2011

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GridOS uses visually distinctive app clusters which are analogous to folders in iOS.

Price

£207

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Although GridOS won't have integrated access to Google's cloud services, the Grid10 will be able to synchronise data and settings with other GridOS devices through Fusion Garage's servers.

The Grid10 will have access to Amazon's app store. Since the Amazon app store isn't currently available in the UK, this suggests it will be by the time of the Grid10's UK release on 24th October. A Fusion Garage-developed office suite will apparently come preinstalled on the Grid10, but there won't be Exchange support of any kind built into the operating system so Exchange-dependent businesses would need a third party app.

This surprising omission is compensated for by the Grid10's price just 207 ex VAT from Amazon for the WiFi-only model and 287 ex VAT for the 3G model.

So what are our first impressions?

Verdict

GridOS feels smooth and responsive and the Grid10 itself feels surprisingly well-made. We have our doubts about some aspects of GridOS though – the lack of Android Market access and the clunky app clusters on the Home Screen are especially glaring. More importantly for many businesses is the lack of built-in Exchange support. The latter will have to be fixed before most businesses can even consider deploying the Grid10, but for smaller companies the Grid10 could be very appealing budget tablet depending on what apps they need.

Connectivity: N/A

Display: 1,366 x 768 pixels, 10.1in

OS: GridOS

Camera: 1.3 megapixels forward-facing

GPS: assisted

Processor: 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2

RAM: 512MB

Bluetooth: 2.1+EDR

Wi-Fi: 802.11 b/g/n

Storage: 16GB internal

Ports: proprietary dock connector

Slots: microSD