EvigroupPaddle
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France's eviGroup SmartPaddle surrenders to lower prices
You may remember eviGroup's range of SmartPaddle Windows 7 tablets, the latest arriving back in March with the heavy-duty price of $1,800. Now it's produced a budget-model and rechristened the hefty original as the SmartPaddle Pro. The new SmartPaddle (keep up) has a 10.2-inch 1024 x 600 capacitive multitouch screen, 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, 2GB RAM, 32GB SSD and a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N455 that runs Windows 7. Battery life is rated for five hours and the only build-to-order option you have is to squeeze a 120GB HDD in there too -- but they don't recommend you do. The company has stopped talking up its webcam-based gesture controls (probably for the best) and has made the old-school move of including a physical scroll-wheel along one side of the device. It's available to order now, at the comparably bargainacious price of €660 ($900). [Thanks, Nicolas]
Evigroup Paddle Pro's steamy demo gives you head tracking, hot flashes
We've been waiting to see the Paddle Pro in action since Evigroup announced the hands-free tablet last year, but we never imagined our introduction would be this, well... titillating. We previously announced that the tablet would utilize a front-facing webcam to track head movements for cursor control, and as far as we can tell, the system follows through on its promises: the cursor follows the motion of the user's head with fluidity, and -- it seems -- staring at any point on the screen more than a half-second equates to a click of the mouse. Frankly, we're still stumped on the double-click, though. A Paddle Pro sporting Windows 7 runs €990 ($1300), while the same tablet sans the software costs €890 ($1169). We're still jonesing to see its moves in person, but if you're looking for a little tablet eye-candy to spice up your day, check out the unashamedly racy demo after the jump. [Thanks, WMax]
eviGroup Paddle gets specced and splayed, now available from €599
This is far from the most flattering angle from which to view eviGroup's multitouch tablets, but it shows off an important facet of design -- should you buy the pricy Paddle (pictured at left), you'll be able to swap the battery, memory and hard drive. Units ship today with yesteryear's netbook specs, including a 1.6GHz Atom CPU, 160GB hard drive, 0.3 megapixel webcam and 1GB of RAM, but also the ports many tablets lack, including three USB jacks, VGA-out, an SD card slot and wired LAN. 802.11a/b/g WiFi comes standard while 3G connectivity costs an extra €150 (roughly $186), and if you'd rather not tinker with operating systems or hardware upgrades yourself, the factory will handle both for €50 ($62) and €79 ($98) respectively. The questions remaining are if the hardware can handle your applications -- and whether you're willing to pay iPad-plus prices for a device with just three hours of estimated battery life. Video after the break, full specs at the source link.
Evigroup Paddle shows up in manufacturer-provided picture gallery
Man, we've been talking about the JooJoo so much lately, you must be sick to death of that thing. Just to balance things out, here's a look at the first functional production units of Evigroup's Paddle tablet. Running on a good old fashioned Atom CPU, this promises Windows 7's limitless functionality (and battery strain) plus an extra-special 3D interface called Scale. It's curious, therefore, not to see a single screenshot featuring said UI. We're treated to vanilla Windows 7 throughout, suggesting that maybe somebody woke up to the fact that the processor inside this machine wasn't exactly designed for heavy lifting and the Scale idea was mercifully shelved. Either way, this 10-incher doesn't look all that shabby at all and the gallery at the source is well worth a quick perusal. We've got one more pic of this upstanding French gentleman after the break.
EviGroup's Paddle is the more advanced, more expensive Pad (video)
Remember the eviGroup Pad, the 10-inch tablet with 3G and a creepy looking AI slave built-in? We won't blame you if you forgot it, but maybe its more advanced cousin will be more memorable. If anything its name will be: Paddle. It's the same basic design as the Pad, a 10-inch keyboard-free tablet with netbook internals, but this one gets a swankier LED-backlit multitouch display along with SSD storage -- though a paltry 32GB max on flash is hardly an upgrade over the 320GB you can get on platters. Also new is an optional WiFi antenna to boost range and a new layer over Windows 7 called Scale that looks a little like being trapped on the inside of a paddlewheel of content (video below). How much would you pay for such decidedly evolutionary steps? For eviGroup's sake hopefully your number is somewhere around €699 ($945), because that's the MSRP when it starts shipping this summer -- a rather steep increase over the (already pricey) €500 Pad.
