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Optimus Keyboard Starts Shipping

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the true-sticker-shock dept.

Tom's Hardware is reporting that the Optimus keyboard that everyone was so anxious for (although maybe less so when they saw the price tag) started shipping this week. "According to an announcement made on the Optimus project blog, keyboards are now shipping to customers who pre-ordered the $1564 keyboard nine months ago. Keyboards with passive keys are delayed and will be shipping in about a month, the manufacturer said. [...] Earlier this month, one of the first Optimus Maximus keyboards was sold for $2750 on Ebay." Engadget even got the chance to test one of these expensive toys out.

3 of 309 comments (clear)

  1. Review summary by Smackheid · · Score: 5, Informative

    -LEDs are bright and clear
    -Key Image Editing is quick and painless (use your graphic editor of choice)
    -Still some quirks to work out with Macs
    -High-quality parts and construction
    -Requires extra strength for keypresses, so unsuitable for typing more than a few minutes.

    --
    Je me fous du passé
    1. Re:Review summary by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 4, Informative

      You mean something like TouchStream from Finger Works? This is just a sample of the input commands for text editing.

      Apple bought them and incorporated their tech into the iPhone, iTouch, & MacBook Air. I suspect 2 finger scrolling and right click on the Intel laptops also came out of this.

      You can find iGestures on eBay, but they're fetching a pretty penny last time I checked. They even have a macro editor and such so you can assign any finger gesture to almost anything.

  2. Article is dumb by ianare · · Score: 4, Informative
    I like how the article confuses LED with an OLED display, thereby completely missing the point of the device. Any idiot can stick an LED inside a keyboard key, in fact there are plenty of LED back-lit keyboards out there. But putting in a completely programmable display in each key is something much, much more complicated (and cooler). This is why there has been so much interest in it, and why it so expensive.
    Speaking of which, the full blown 103 programmable key version is $1564, but with less programmable keys it is cheaper. As follows:
    • 1 active key - $462
    • 10 active keys - $600
    • 47 active keys - $1000
    • 103 active keys - $1564