When is an Android tablet not an Android tablet? When it’s a Fusion Garage Grid 10.

The Fusion Garage Grid 10 uses a new operating system by the name of Grid OS, which is built on top of the Android kernel, just as a Twitter client is built on top of the Twitter site itself – to the user it’s a totally different interface, but underneath the internals are the same.

The kernel, then, is the central hub of the OS, acting as the communication bridge between the apps and the hardware. Most importantly, although the UI is different, the OS can still run Android apps. The Fusion Garage Grid 10 is what we’d expect to see in a 10.1″ tablet – it weighs in at 689g, and is powered by an Nvidia Tegra 2 CPU. It does come with only 512MB of RAM, and it lacks a rear-facing camera to complement the 1.3MP front-facing camera. As if that wasn’t enough, storage is a measly 16GB. At least it’s nice and slim at 14mm.

The screen’s 1366 x 768 resolution is higher than the iPad, and makes for crisp images, but colors are neither bright nor vivid.

More positively, the tablet features a great OS and is scheduled for sale at the end of October priced at just $350. Or $475 for the 3G model when it’s released, although the date for that is still uncertain.

Instead of an OS homescreen, Grid OS employs a huge, never-ending grid where users can place their app icons, grouped in clusters or individually. These clusters can be expanded or minimized with a single tap, which enables you to build up a hierarchy of apps on your homepage. This means any app on your device can be opened in just two clicks.

Because the grid has no beginning or end, you can scroll around as if navigating a large webpage on a smartphone. A grid map top-right enables rapid navigation around the grid map, so you can skip strraight to your desired app cluster.  Everything works smoothly, but whether this is an improvement on the standard Android-iOS paradign is questionable. Novel, fun, even pretty, but not necessarily quicker. What Grid OS demands is an encyclopaedic knowledge of your device – where exactly everything is stored, in what app cluster, and so on.  But with a little work, we think it’s possible to adapt to this system.

A vast collection of icon animations makes expanding clusters and opening menus fluid and enjoyable. For instance, select a movie title on a webpage, and you’re presented with a list of options for searching the web, viewing that film’s page in Wikipedia or IMDB, or for buying the DVD on Amazon. Navigating between screens is accomplished with gestures – various gestures allow users to maximize a screen, minimize back to the main grid, navigate forwards or backwards – though gestures seem to misfire annoyingly often.

Although the Garage Grid 10 ships with numerous built-in apps for such activites as reading email or watching video, the official Google apps found on other Android tablets are missing. So there’s no access to the Android Market. But this lock-in style of OS might be necessary to ensure uptake of Fusion Garage’s Grid OS. Let’s just hope they don’t take too long to launch their planned App Shop. in any case, users can still use the Amazon Appstore.

The overall look and feel of Grid OS are positive. The browser is responsive, and scrolling and pinch-to-zoom are smooth.

Perhaps people will get along well with the Grid OS system. It certainly has potential to give users a great deal of control over their device, and we see no reason why it can’t rise to the universally-liked status of the iOS UI. And at just $350, the Fusion Garage Grid 10 represents a good deal for anyone who fancies giving it a try.