A tablet that's right at home in the
kitchen, but it's far too expensive for such a limited device
It’s always nice to see a product step out
of the mainstream and do something different, and that’s something the Qooq
does from the word go. This is a tablet designed solely for one task - to
provide a kitchen-proof, digital recipe book for budding Masterchef
contestants.
At first blush, you might think that’s
daft, but actually it isn’t such a silly premise. Whenever we want to cook
something special at home these days, rather than trawl through a book, our
first instinct is to pick up a tablet and hit the internet for recipes and
expert advice. Admittedly, this isn’t always a brilliant idea: the kitchen is a
messy and hazardous place for the average tablet - but the Qooq is designed to
take such dangers in its stride.
Qooq
tablet
For starters, it’s both splash-proof and
heat-resistant. At each corner, there are curved metal feet tipped with rubber,
so the Qooq can be laid flat on a smooth surface and stay put, keeping the body
of the tablet raised above the surface, so you don’t have to worry about spills
seeping into open ports.
There’s also a handy kickstand, and, rather
than having to hunt around for recipes on the internet, the Qooq comes
preloaded with 1,000 from more than 100 “top French chefs” (none of these are
household names, however). Recipes can be filtered by a number of parameters:
ingredient, dish type, seasonality, difficulty and preparation time.
Accompanying each recipe is a list of the equipment you’ll need, and by
increasing the number of servings required, the ingredient quantities are adjusted
automatically.
More importantly, many of the recipes are
accompanied by video instructions on how to carry out tricky techniques.
More
importantly, many of the recipes are accompanied by video instructions on how
to carry out tricky techniques
It’s like having a recipe book and TV
cooking show combined in one. For keen amateurs, this is a boon and can save
guesswork and research. The first recipe we tried it out on was a Thai prawn
curry, which calls for the preparation of raw tiger prawns: a quick trip to the
techniques section found a video demonstrating the correct method for removing
the head and shell, and de-veining the crustacean ready for cooking. It’s
crammed with similar tutorials, from de-boning a chicken thigh to preparing a
Bechamel sauce.
As a kitchen aid, the Qooq is a
well-thought-out piece of kit, then. Even its rather clunky-looking Linux-based
interface is well-tuned and reasonably light on its feet, and offers useful
additional tools such as a kitchen timer that sits in a pull-out side bar, a
meal planner and a shopping-list builder.
However, cooking is the limit of the Qooq’s
usefulness. It has an email app, internet radio and video and MP3 players, but
these are all basic and there’s no way of adding more apps. There’s a web browser
as well, which supports Flash, but it scores a mediocre 1,958ms in the
SunSpider JavaScript benchmark (most modern tablets score 1,500ms or faster),
and you’ll soon tire of its slow-motion scrolling and lack of multi-touch zoom
support.
However,
cooking is the limit of the Qooq’s usefulness
Even if you could load games and other apps
on this tablet, the chunky, flexible plastic chassis will put you off whipping
it out in public. No matter how rugged Qooq insists it is, the shiny red
plastic feels cheap, and the poor quality of the 10.1in, 1,024 x 600 resolution
TN screen compounds this impression.
Viewing angles are such that the colors
shift significantly when you move away from straight on, and the maximum
brightness is only 169cd/m2 with a woeful 245:1 contrast ratio. Battery life is
appalling as well: in our looping video test, it lasted a mere 3hrs 13mins with
Wi-Fi off and the screen set to half brightness; in the kitchen, we had to
leave it plugged in.
The biggest issue with the Qooq, however,
is the price. At $462 inc VAT, it’s almost as expensive as a proper 10in
Android tablet such as the Nexus 10 (web ID: 378280), and pricier than compact
tablets, too. This might be explained had it included an ongoing subscription
to new recipes via the internet, for example. However, Qooq expects its
customers to pay for that privilege via a $16-per-month, Spotify-style
subscription. It’s possible to save money by paying for a year upfront, but
that only serves to highlight what poor value the whole package is: paying $158
for extra recipes seems like throwing good money after bad.
The
biggest issue with the Qooq, however, is the price
That, in combination with the rest of its
shortcomings - the cheap build quality, the terrible display, the awful battery
life and the high purchase price means the Qooq tablet isn’t something we can
recommend to anyone other than the most gadget-obsessed cooking fanatic. It’s a
shame, since we very much like the idea of a sensibly designed, robust kitchen
tablet.
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Specifications
·
1GHz ARM Cortex A9 dual-core CPU
·
1.5GB storage
·
101in 1,024 x 600 TFT
·
SD card slot
·
USB
·
10/100 Ethernet
·
Linux-based OS
·
1yr RTB warranty
·
280 x 29 x 183mm (WDH)
·
856g
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