Fusion Garage Joo Joo Tablet Unveiled [CrunchPad turns into the JooJoo, 12-inch screen, WiFi, Linux]

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What was the TechCrunch CrunchPad has become the Fusion Garage JooJoo. Following a disagreement between TechCrunch’s superblogger Michael Arrington and Fusion Garage – the people manufacturing the CrunchPad, the deal fell out and Fusion Garage is pressing forward by producing the large tablet web browser by themselves.

The JooJoo will sport a superwide 12″ capactive touchscreen, a 4GB SSD, and WiFi connectivity, along with 5 hours of battery life. The JooJoo will use a Linux-based OS that will ONLY feature a web browser, making this thing exclusively a MID (until somebody hacks it – that is) The OS will not be Chrome OS, apperantly. Unfortunately, the JooJoo will come at a price of $500, which is well above many netbooks and might not be worth it, even for such a nice unit. Fusion Garage will begin accepting pre-orders on the tablet this Friday.

As for the drama-laden backstory between TechCrunch and Fusion Garage: TechCrunch’s side is that following some bad negotiation between the two, Fusion Garage decided to remove TechCrunch from their own CrunchPad project. Fusion Garage alleges that they had been working on the JooJoo long before the CrunchPad concept was ever conceived.

The story might not be over though, as TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington has taken legal action against Fusion Garage. Fusion Garage doesn’t seem to care, as they will begin taking pre-orders. Whatever happens with the legal dispute and whoever you agree with, it would be a shame to see this nice (albeit, expensive) tablet get shelved forever because of a legal struggle.