French tablet maker Evigroup is officially one of the first companies to ship a tablet running Windows 8. Actually, the Evigroup SmartPaddle Pro is available with Windows 8 Release Preview and Windows 7 in a dual-boot configuration.
That lets users decide which operating system they prefer — and when Windows 8 is released this fall, Evigroup will provide an update to customers free of charge.
Shipping a computer with a pre-release version of Windows is unusual, to say the least. I’m  not sure what Microsoft’s policy on this sort of thing is, but since Evigroup is a relatively small company based in Europe, they might be able to fly under Microsoft’s radar.
The SmartPaddle Pro features an 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display, a 1.66 GHz Intel Atom N450 single core processor, 2GB of RAM, and a choice of a 32GB or 64GB solid state disk.
While the Atom N450 processor normally can’t handle HD video playback very well, Evigroup’s tablet also includes a Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerator for high definition video support.
The tablet features WiFi, Bluetooth, and optional 3G and A-GPS, weighs about 2.2 pounds, measures about half an inch thick, and gets up to 5 hours of battery life.
It tablet has 3 USB 2.0 ports and Ethernet and audio jacks, as well as 1.3MP front-facing camera.
The SmartPaddle Pro doesn’t come cheap. Prices range from 759 Euros to 1190 Euros. That’s about $939 to $1489 US.
via Notebook Italia
The Broadcom Crystal HD is nice, but doesn’t assist the processor when playing Windows Media Center (.wtv) files. That is really unfortunate! Next to that this is all nice, but why pay this large amount of money for an End Of Life tablet? This clearly is a Masterpad, EXOPC, WeTab, Vibe (and then some other brands have used this Pegatron tablet to sell their tablets). Just pick up a second hand WeTab 3G 32GB for about € 200,- (or even less), install Windows 8 and you’re ready!