EVO Smart Console is a line media PCs and

video game console A video game console is an electronic device that Input/output, outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can typically be played with a game controller. These may be home video game console, home consoles, which are generally ...

s marketed in the

seventh generation of video game consoles The seventh generation of home video game consoles began on November 22, 2005, with the release of Microsoft's Xbox 360 home console. This was followed by the release of Sony's PlayStation 3 on November 17, 2006, and Nintendo's Wii on November ...

. The system was produced by Envizions, a company based in

Anniston, Alabama Anniston is a city and the county seat of Calhoun County, Alabama, Calhoun County in Alabama, United States, and is one of two urban centers/principal cities of and included in the Anniston–Oxford metropolitan area, Anniston–Oxford Metropo ...

History

On August 10, 2004, the company Envizions was founded. Development of the first EVO console is estimated to have cost roughly 1 million dollars. The beta, called ''EVO: Phase One'', was released on October 20, 2006. The final name of the system was ''EVO Smart Console'', and was released to developers on November 20, 2008, and it cost $250 following a rebate scheme, with a upfront price of $600. The media debut for the system occurred after the release of developer machines on May 5, 2009. On April 9, 2009, the cumulative number of units sold was 10 at a cost of either $379 for the Linux version or $479 for the Windows version. However, on April 23, 2009

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

reported that the prices for the systems were $279 and $350. On April 9, 2009 100 units had been produced. The EVO 2 is a cancelled game console project first mentioned on an Envizions press release on January 9, 2011, under the name ''GameBox'', it was unveiled on May 25, 2011, with specs, images, and a new name. It was supposed initially to be released in fall 2011, before later being delayed to a 2012 release date. The announcement of a delay also contained the announcement of a limited re-release of the original EVO Smart Console. On November 28, 2012, Envizions CEO Derrick Samuels announced a new Android console, ''Oton'', from his new startup called 'EnGeniux', effectively ending EVO 2's development. OTON was to be a console capable of some

autonomy In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy is the capacity to make an informed, uncoerced decision. Autonomous organizations or institutions are independent or self-governing. Autonomy can also be ...

. Despite the cancellation of the EVO 2, Envizions developed the ''EVO 2 DX'', a gaming PC running an operating system that is a hybrid of

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

and Android. It has motion capabilities using a standard webcam.

Specifications

EVO Smart Console

Hardware

A dual core AMD Athlon 64x2 5600+ (2.90 GHz)

central processing unit A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor, or just processor, is the primary Processor (computing), processor in a given computer. Its electronic circuitry executes Instruction (computing), instructions ...

powers the system, and is accompanied by a ATI HD 3200

graphics processing unit A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics, being present either as a discrete video card or embedded on motherboards, mobile phones, personal ...

. The system has 2 gigabytes of DDR2 RAM clocked at 800 MHz. A 120 gigabyte

hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...

handles local storage, with cloud storage also being supported. Removable

digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, an ...

was supported with a

DVD-ROM The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

Drive, which was compatible with

DVD-video DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVDs. DVD-Video was the dominant consumer home video format in most of the world in the 2000s. As of 2024, it competes with the high-definition Blu-ray Disc, while both rece ...

, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW,

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains computer data storage, data computers can read, but not write or erase. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold b ...

, and

CD-RW RW (Compact Disc-Rewritable) is a digital media, digital optical disc data storage device, storage format introduced by Ricoh in 1997. A CD-RW compact disc (CD-RWs) can be written, read, erased, and re-written. CD-RWs, as opposed to CDs, r ...

formats. Additionally the system sported one

SD card Secure Digital (SD) is a proprietary, non-volatile, flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA). Owing to their compact size, SD cards have been widely adopted in a variety of portable consumer electronics, including dig ...

slot. Game media was distributed on SD cards. Graphics are output on two built in ports, one

HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary digital interface used to transmit high-quality video and audio signals between devices. It is commonly used to connect devices such as televisions, computer monitors, projectors, gam ...

port, and one DVI port.

Standard-definition Standard-definition television (SDTV; also standard definition or SD) is a television system that uses a resolution that is not considered to be either high-definition television, high or enhanced definition. ''Standard'' refers to offering a ...

high-definition video High-definition video (HD video) is video of higher resolution and quality than standard-definition. While there is no standardized meaning for ''high-definition'', generally any video image with considerably more than 480 vertical scan lines ( ...

could be output. The system sports three

audio Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to: Sound *Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound *Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum *Digital audio, representation of sound ...

ports. The system also has two USB 2.0 ports for general IO. The system included two

Ethernet Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

ports, allowing it to access the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

, as well as to allow multiple players from one master hub.

Software

The system uses the

Fedora A fedora () is a hat with a soft brim and indented crown.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards (1958). ''A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern''. R. M. McBride Company. It is typically creased lengthwise down the crown and "pinched" near the front on both sides ...

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

. A model which cost $100 more ran

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

. The system came bundled with three games: '' SuperTux'', ''Kobo Deluxe'', and ''Kid Destiny''. The console also features high definition (HD),

access, and was able to run

and

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...

-based games. The system relies on proprietary

firmware In computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computer, computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and the development of both computer hardware, h ...

. A

biometric Biometrics are body measurements and calculations related to human characteristics and features. Biometric authentication (or realistic authentication) is used in computer science as a form of identification and access control. It is also used t ...

security system supported fingerprint scans, facial, and voice recognition, and biometric linked game saves The system supported

VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as IP telephony, is a set of technologies used primarily for voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. VoIP enables voice calls to be transmitted as ...

Remote desktop software In computing, the term remote desktop refers to a software- or operating system feature that allows a personal computer's desktop environment to be run remotely from one system (usually a PC, but the concept applies equally to a server or a sma ...

Internet Television Streaming television is the digital distribution of television content, such as films and television show, television series, Streaming media, streamed over the Internet. Standing in contrast to dedicated terrestrial television delivered by Broadc ...

Streaming Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a network for playback using a media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of packets from a server to a client and is rendered in real-time; this contrasts with file downl ...

content, Akimbo-based

video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos, television shows and films Digital distribution, digitally on request. These multimedia are accessed without a traditional video playback device and a typica ...

(VOD), and DVR. Most of this was handled by the voice-enabled Media Center Communicator.

Latest Revision

The latest version had

-based games, and an Akimbo-based video on demand service. It also had a larger, 250 GB

hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...

1080p 1080p (1920 × 1080 progressively displayed pixels; also known as Full HD or FHD, and BT.709) is a set of HDTV high-definition video modes characterized by 1,920 pixels displayed across the screen horizontally and 1,080 pixels down the sc ...

resolution, and ran a version of

operating system, ''Mirrors Evolution''. There is

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...

for developers to make games for the system.

EVO 2

The EVO 2 uses a Samsung S5PV210

CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor, or just processor, is the primary processor in a given computer. Its electronic circuitry executes instructions of a computer program, such as arithmetic, log ...

, containing a

ARM Cortex-A8 The ARM Cortex-A8 is a 32-bit processor core licensed by ARM Holdings implementing the ARM architecture, ARMv7-A architecture. Compared to the ARM11, the Cortex-A8 is a dual-issue superscalar processor, superscalar design, achieving roughly twic ...

core clocked from containing a 1 GHz up to 1.2 GHz, The system has 512 MB of RAM. An

Nvidia Nvidia Corporation ( ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang (president and CEO), Chris Malachowsky, and Curti ...

Tegra Tegra is a system on a chip (SoC) series developed by Nvidia for mobile devices such as smartphones, personal digital assistants, and mobile Internet devices. The Tegra integrates an ARM architecture central processing unit (CPU), graphics pr ...

2 is used as a GPU. The system uses 2 GB of internal flash storage. Storage is expandable via SD/

SDHC Secure Digital (SD) is a proprietary, non-volatile, flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA). Owing to their compact size, SD cards have been widely adopted in a variety of portable consumer electronics, including digi ...

memory cards with a SD memory card slot (supports SDHC cards) Further expansion is possible with 5 USB 2.0 ports Two different kinds of display output were supported. An "AV Multi Out" port, supported

composite video Composite video, also known as CVBS (composite video baseband signal or color, video, blanking and sync), is an analog video format that combines image information—such as brightness (luminance), color (chrominance), and synchronization, int ...

S-Video S-Video (also known as separate video, Y/C, and erroneously Super-Video) is an analog video signal format that carries standard-definition video, typically at 525 lines or 625 lines. It encodes video luma and chrominance on two separate chann ...

(

NTSC NTSC (from National Television System Committee) is the first American standard for analog television, published and adopted in 1941. In 1961, it was assigned the designation System M. It is also known as EIA standard 170. In 1953, a second ...

consoles only). An

out port, supported six-channel

PCM Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a method used to Digital signal (signal processing), digitally represent analog signals. It is the standard form of digital audio in computers, compact discs, digital telephony and other digital audio application ...

linear output through HDMI. Resolutions supported included

1080i In high-definition television (HDTV) and video display technology, 1080i is a video display format with 1080 lines of vertical resolution and Interlaced video, interlaced scanning method. This format was once a standard in HDTV. It was particular ...

720p 720p (720 lines progressive) is a progressive HD signal format with 720 horizontal lines/1280 columns and an aspect ratio (AR) of 16:9, normally known as widescreen HD (1.78:1). All major HD broadcasting standards (such as SMPTE 292M) includ ...

480p 480p is the shorthand name for a family of video display resolutions. The p stands for progressive scan, i.e. non-interlaced. The ''480'' denotes a vertical resolution of 480 pixels, usually with a horizontal resolution of 640 pixels and 4:3 a ...

, or

480i 480i is the video mode used for standard-definition digital video in the Caribbean, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Myanmar, Western Sahara, and most of the Americas (with the exception of Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay). The ...

, standard 4:3 and 16:9

anamorphic widescreen Anamorphic widescreen (also called full-height anamorphic or FHA) is a process by which a widescreen image is horizontally compressed to fit into a storage medium (photographic film or MPEG-2 standard-definition frame, for example) with a narr ...

EVO 2 DX

The system was powered by an undisclosed "quad-core Opteron & Phenom" CPU, working in conjunction with a DirectX 10.1 compatible Integrated ATI Radeon HD 4200. The underlying system made use of an

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California and maintains significant operations in Austin, Texas. AMD is a hardware and fabless company that de ...

785G chipset as well as a SB750 chipset. Internally the system has 4 x SATA II ports capable of 3 Gbit/s with support for RAID 0,1,5,10 through AMD RAIDXpert. For external storage the system has two

eSATA SATA (Serial AT Attachment) is a computer bus interface that connects host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives, optical drives, and solid-state drives. Serial ATA succeeded the earlier Parallel ATA (PATA) standard ...

ports. Networking is handled by

Realtek Realtek Semiconductor Corp. () is a Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company situated in the Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu, Taiwan. Realtek was founded in October 1987 and subsequently listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 1998. Realtek has manu ...

PCI-Express based

Gigabit Ethernet In computer networking, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE or 1 GigE) is the term applied to transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of a gigabit per second. The most popular variant, 1000BASE-T, is defined by the IEEE 802.3ab standard. It came into use in ...

port. Video output ports include HDMI 1.3,

VGA Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the IBM PC compatible industry within three years. T ...

, and DVI-D. Audio is handled by an Integrated ALC662 6-CH HD audio. Other ports included 1 x 32-bit

PCI PCI may refer to: Business and economics * Payment card industry, businesses associated with debit, credit, and other payment cards ** Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, a set of security requirements for credit card processors * Prov ...

and 1 x mini-

PCI Express PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), officially abbreviated as PCIe, is a high-speed standard used to connect hardware components inside computers. It is designed to replace older expansion bus standards such as Peripher ...

EVO 2 DX Pocket

An android powered handheld system.

References

External links

* (Archive) {{Seventh generation game consoles Personal computers Computer-related introductions in 2006 X86-based game consoles Linux-based video game consoles Android-based video game consoles Seventh-generation video game consoles Anniston, Alabama