Optimus Keyboard Pre-Orders In Mere Hours

godzillopiteco sends timely word that Art. Lebedev Studio is finally going to accept pre-orders for the Optimus Maximus Keyboard — in just under 11 hours at the time this story posts, according to the countdown timer on the site. (Late last year we were primed to pre-order in December 2006.) Read the project's blog for some recent developments.

Comments

More details

[Southpaw018]

I'm less interested in the pre orders and more interested in the "description and detailed specifications," to be released at the same time.

This thing has sounded, looked, and felt like another Phantom since the start...

Re:More details

[nacturation]

Agreed... this is something I would consider buying, were it not for the extraordinary price. Now the three button version of it for about $150 is certainly interesting for a few applications. However, the countdown timer to take a preorder is nothing more than a marketing gimmick. The fact that it's a preorder means you're going to have to wait before they're even made. And that there's a countdown means that they're making you wait before you start waiting. If they're in the preorder phase, then just start taking down names already.

Re:More details

[Seumas]

The only detail that matters to me is that it's $1500 and it doesn't even come in a fucking ergo/wave format. I wouldn't pay $10 for a non-ergo keyboard - much less $1500. I don't care if it comes with a "summon the slave girls to come orally satisfy me" button -- if it ain't ergo, it ain't worth it. I spend way too much time at the keyboard to try and cram my hands into an unnatural straight-edge keyboard position.

I probably wouldn't spend $1500 for it, anyway. But once it hit the $600 to $800, I absolutely would - as long as it was in a ergo/wave form.

Re:More details

[ThePeices]

You have to remember that if the keyboard turns out as well as we expect, then the high price is not a problem. There are a very large number of rich people around the world, and having something as useful and good looking as we hope the Maximus turns out to be, it would become a status symbol. All the rich geeks can get to have one and brag about it...Thats all assuming the reviews are positive, but this is such a great and good looking idea its a guaranteed sell. Gamers would love it, Photoshop users would love it, hell i would love it. With the demand the price will come down as production scales, its just a matter of time until it becomes affordable. Ipods cost alot but plenty of people still buy them, one of these could be as must have as the ipod.

Re:More details

[Propaganda13]

$1500 Hmmmmm, two 24" LCD monitors or the pre-order of a keyboard that changes icons that I won't look at and if I did, would be covered up by my hands. Well, at least I've got a couple of hours to think about this.

Re:More details

[rblancarte]

That only goes so far. I mean, it is one thing when you are looking at a price difference of maybe 20-30%. I think even 100% in some cases is fair. You talk about the iPod, but it's cost is on par with other similar sized MP3 players. But for this to be pretty much 2000% more expensive than most keyboards! That is a no go for me. I mean, sure it is a great idea and such, but only goes so far. I mean, the kind of functionality help, I don't see it being worth $1500.

I don't see them being sold at an sort of rate that is going to drive down prices.

I have to agree, I think my G15 is going to work fine for me.

RonB

Re:More details

[admactanium]

Thats all assuming the reviews are positive, but this is such a great and good looking idea its a guaranteed sell. Gamers would love it, Photoshop users would love it, hell i would love it.

being a photoshop user (retoucher) i woudn't use this keyboard for that kind of work. there's no point and it's needlessly expensive. i can remember the keys that i need. also, many of the tools in photoshop require multiple presses of the same key to invoke. for instance, you can toggle between the many types of lasso tool (freeform, rubber band, magnetic) by pressing the "L" key.

this keyboard wouldn't really offer any benefit to a user since, at best, it can either display the current tool, or the next tool in the heirarchy of that button. in either case, i already know how to toggle to that next tool and i don't need the keyboard to tell me what the next tool is.

for $250 i might buy it. but for $1500, i'd recommend any photoshop user buy more ram, a bigger monitor (or a secondary or tertiary monitor) and a wacom tablet and still have some money left over.

*Yawn*

[Giolon]

I was really excited about this keyboard back when they first announced it and they posited that it would cost approxmiately $100. Now that it's finally becoming a reality several years behind schedule, and is going to cost approximately $1500, I don't know how anybody can really still be looking foward to it.

Re:*Yawn*

[DAtkins]

How is this modded insightful?

The exciting thing is going to be if there are enough pre-orders for them to start fabrication. If they can stay in business passed this point, and OLED manufacturers start ramping up, it's only a matter of time before the price comes down. I remember when plasmas came out priced around $20000 for a 42" (if it was that big). Now you can get them for much less. We don't know how their planning on fabrication at this level. With such a small production schedule, it would suggest hand assembly. If they managed to sell out that production run, whats to stop them from licensing it to a foreign manufacturer? You know, like we do...

Re:*Yawn*

[enharmonix]

I don't remember them ever saying it would cost $100, I knew it was going to be cheap, and was sure they mentioned the price would be around $200-$300, which I admit is is still not cheap, but no where near the extortionate price they are charging for it. According to the last /. story, it was "a little less than a good cellphone," I think the editors guessed under $400, but I'm not sure. But if you think about it, people spending even $100 for a keyboard is pretty unusual. The idea of a keyboard in the $200-300 range probably does not sit well with anybody with the ability to invest in the manufacture and packaging of something like this, which is no doubt what these guys are looking for (I doubt they have their own factory). The few that can be pre-ordered are probably all hand-built at this point, in which case a $1500 price tag is not bad for what is essentially a prototype. But if they post their count-down, it hits /. and of those readers, 200 geeks pay $1500 each for one of these, that's probably a pretty big indicator that something like this just might do well at $200-300 on Best Buy's shelves, and this outfit can probably convince somebody to invest in mass-producing them for the rest of us. Just a thought, tho. Cheers.

A bit pricey

[bubbl07]

At $1564 USD, the price is a bit steep for most of us, but I'm sure it'll find its niche.

Re:A bit pricey

[John3]

It will likely become a cool device for geeks to show their grandkids ten or twenty years from now. I predict the initial production run will be the only production run.

Advertising

[Animats]

This isn't a story. This is an ad.

If it's a real, successful product, it will be available tomorrow, the next day, probably next week, and at a lower price in a few months. If not, well...

Re:Advertising

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

This isn't a story. This is an ad. Whether or not it is an advertisement does not preclude it from being a story. The first keyboard with fully software remappable symbols on each and every key is absolutely news for nerds.

Re:Wow... that's cool

[BrokenHalo]

Then I kept reading. I will definitely be getting myself one of these!

I won't. I fail to understand the attraction of these dubious bells and whistles when the whole idea is that we shouldn't need to look at the keyboard when we use it...

What would be more practical...

[commlinx]

Rather than having every key with an in-built display what would be more practical is leaving the alphanumeric keys as standard and just having the displays on the left block of special function keys and F1-F15. Short of multiple users who want to swap between QWERTY, Dvorak and other languages I can't think of any reason re-programming the standard keys is useful and it must add stacks to the cost. I'd go for one at $200 odd if when I switched applications I could replace the function keys with alternative icons and alternative keystroke codes. No wonder the unit cost is so high though - they don't seem to be planning to manufacture many units so it seems to be aimed at people with a surplus of cash.

Re:What would be more practical...

[Bogtha]

Short of multiple users who want to swap between QWERTY, Dvorak and other languages I can't think of any reason re-programming the standard keys is useful and it must add stacks to the cost.

Different keyboard modes have a much wider scope than layouts and languages. It's for displaying the right icons for when you are playing Quake, for displaying the effects of shortcuts when you are in Photoshop, for displaying the right functions when you switch modes in vi, for showing the right characters when you hold down Alt Gr when you want curly quotes, em dashes, etc.

I think a keyboard like this could be very useful even to computer novices — perhaps especially to computer novices. I've been using computers for decades, and I haven't memorised a fraction of the keyboard shortcuts I could find useful. It would be a lot easier for me if I could hold down Ctrl and look at my keyboard to see the right key to press. If a power user like me can't learn all the shortcuts, how could a newbie?

The real problem is that they went all out for the full-colour display, the animation, the integrated USB mass storage, etc, when you can get 99% of the value of this thing with a monochrome, high-latency, no-hard-drive version for a fraction of the cost. There's no way I'd pay this much for a keyboard, but I'd certainly jump at the chance if somebody were offering the cheaper version I describe. I've heard of various proof-of-concepts, but nothing for sale to end-users outside of the USA.

Why for Odin's sake...

[belgar]

....does Slashdot act as the marketing arm of Lebedev? The number of pre-annouce, pre-production, pre-order shite having to do with this marginally cool keyboard is wee-todd-did.

Why should I give a damn?

[massysett]

The summary does not include a link to anything telling me what this keyboard is. There's some countdown timer, and a picture of a keyboard--wow. I followed several links under the "Related Links" and burrowed two or three links deep, and I still couldn't find a description of this thing (some links were dead.) The blog does not have a description of what this keyboard is. In short this just looks like a keyboard--who cares? Ooh, pre-orders in hours--I can't wait!

Re:Wow... that's cool

[mr_matticus]

You shouldn't need to look at the keyboard while TYPING.

Keyboards are about far more than typing, though. Just think about games--I don't usually get too far into games anymore because I don't want to spend half an hour memorizing the keys. A game is supposed to be fun. If I can look down and see what each key does, I can start playing immediately. The keyboard could be switched out of text mode to allow me to eliminate on screen palettes and toolbars in Photoshop. It can show users what keys do in iTunes or GarageBand. Hell, it can act (with an A/B typing/interface switch instead of a scroll lock, for example) as a complete replacement for most kinds of toolbars in most any application.

Lots of people didn't think the mouse served a purpose. They could do it all with the keyboard. That's still true, but I for one am glad I was given the choice.

Re:Why not...

[oaklybonn]

I think what everyone fails to grasp here is that this is a design studio, not a chinese keyboard factory. These folks do industrial design for a living and really couldn't care less about whether they sell 100 or 10k of these. At the limited runs they're making (400 this year was it?) I guarantee that they're barely breaking even at that price. Custom tooling is expensive, even in .ru. Frankly, I'll predict that in 10 years, reconfigurable keyboards will be the norm, and will be reasonably priced. It'll just take Apple to license their patents and place an order for 105,000,000 OLED keys... (Since I'm sure Dell won't be able to get the drivers right :-P)

Re:What is this thing?

[daverabbitz]

SO

FUCKING

WHAT.

I never actually look at the keyboard when I am typing, so I can see absolutely no advantage whatsoever to having bling keys.

For example if I want to draw a rectangle in gimp I type ctrl-r without thinking about it. I don't need to look at the keyboard for a stupid rectangle icon.

This keyboard is either for people who are cerebrally challenged or people who masturbate over their computer 24 hours a day because it has gold-plated heatsinks and neon underglow.

LAME.

Re:Wow... that's cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny but then either you're lying (it's still funny) or you ain't a real touch typist. I've got a very special, self-modded, Model M (actually I've got 4 of them) as my main keyboard: it's a "blind" keyboard (nothing written on the keys) *but* the 'f' and 'j' keys have the little bumps that allow touch typist to put their hand in correct position (wheter you are a middle-row or a top-row touch typist, you still use the middle row's two bumps to position your fingers *or* you're making mistakes when first placing your hand on the keyboard) without looking at the keyboard. Without these bumps you simply can't touch type as well as a real touch typist (and, yup, I type in the 3 digits wpm range ;)

So if what you're telling it's true you probably didn't learn to really touch-type, which is why a real touch-typist shall write faster than you.