Art Lebedev, a leading design studio from Russia best known for its innovative gadgets, said in a brief interview that the price of the Optimus Maximus keyboard is set to drop in future. The price drop will not only allow Optimus Maximus keyboards to become more popular among end users, but change the landscape of the whole keyboard industry.
The price of Optimus Maximus and other Optimus keyboards with OLED (organic light-emitting diode) screens inside keys would go down once OLED supplier of Art Lebedev decreases pricing of the screens for the design studio, a representative of Art Lebedev said in a brief interview with Anna Filatova, editor-in-chief of X-bit labs. Art Lebedev also demonstrated a working sample of Optimus Maximus keyboard at Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada.
At present Optimus Maximus keyboard with 113 keys featuring OLED screens costs $1564 dollars, a price-point that is absolutely unsuitable for mainstream consumers. With OLED screens prices down, Art Lebedev will be able to make the keyboard much more affordable, though, it can hardly be expected that the price will be comparable to today’s keyboards. The complex hardware inside the keyboard will still keep the pricing of the device high: even Optimus with one “active” key is set to be sold for $460.
Check out Art Lebedev Optimus Maximus at Consumer Electronics Show 2008 Gallery
Nevertheless, even at around $500 keyboards from Art Lebedev will pose a lot of interest for enthusiasts, who may cease to buy keyboards from companies like Logitech or Microsoft thanks to huge publicity of Art Lebedev and Optimus.
Optimus Maximus is a full-sized 113-keys keyboard with colour OLED screens located inside each key. The screens are 10.1mm² large and have 48x48 pixels resolution, according to its developers. Specially designed software will be able to change images on the colour screens depending on the program running.
Comments currently:
9
Discussion started: 01/09/08 02:06:33 PM
Latest comment: 01/11/08 01:22:22 PM
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1.
what keyboard?
art who?
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Posted by: boner
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Date: 01/09/08 02:06:33 PM]
+ expand thread (6 answers)
- collapse thread
Don't worry bout it, XBIT labs and Toms Hardware keep reporting on this thing, as if anyone freaking cares..... All year long it has been repeatedly reported on, and repeatedly delayed, and for some reason the hardware sites think it is worth talking about (yet they never say what the hell it does)
So what does it do?
The keys can make little pictures...... How is that useful for general users? It isn't..... Just an overpriced toy, that may be useful for shopping malls perhaps but nothing else.
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Posted by: gamebro
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Date: 01/09/08 08:34:22 PM]
Hi! Thanks for touching upon this situation.
Hardware web-sites usually report about progress, technologies, proceedings and products. Since Optimus Maximus seems to be progress from certain standpoints, we post news-stories about the device. We also report about Blu-ray and HD DVD, the two standards only available at 10% of our readers.
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Posted by: Anton
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Date: 01/09/08 08:44:13 PM]
If you dont see any uses for this, then problem is your imagination, not the product. I cant wait for prices to drop, and to go forward from 1960 when same keyboards where as are today.
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Posted by: BorgDrone
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Date: 01/10/08 08:52:29 AM]
Lol..... I personally don't think the company "deserves" recognition for this product though.... It is extremely high priced and constantly delayed. I am not even into this product yet am extremely annoyed at how often my eyes have to be cursed catching yet another headline about this.
And every time you fellows here at x-bit labs report about this, it is virtually the same information recycled from the last article about it, and you NEVER seem to point out opinions on what it could actually be used for...... You say "The keys make pictures" but you never say what kind of uses that might actually have in the practical world.
You fellows also seem to report on this thing when any tiny minuscule bit of new information comes out such as " OPTIMUS MAXIMUS may see a slight price drop"
Does it really need to be reported on at every available opportunity? It is almost as useless as having a headline that says "Someone at the Optimus Maximus group sneezed today" Slow news days?
Now constantly reporting on blue ray\HD DVD is more understandable, since that is something most people will be dealing with at some point or another.
Of course these are just my opinions. Thanks Anton for taking the time to explain a bit, the reason for the madness. =)
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Posted by: gamebro
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Date: 01/10/08 11:17:25 AM]
You could change from say swedish to american keyboard and the keys that would be different could change.. also i imagine users from russia or greece would have much more use for this, althought ive never seen their keyboards.
Then you could have game/app specific keys.. so when you enter say world of warcraft, the keys you have programmed will have the icons of your abilities, your riding animal, potions etc.
Also you could always have a row of keys with your favourite apps/games somewhere on the keyboard..
I think its pretty useful. but got the new Logitech G15 in the mean time.
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Posted by: Silver
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Date: 01/11/08 04:32:27 AM]
That's the best explanation of possible functionality I've heard yet in regards to this keyboard lol.
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Posted by: gamebro
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Date: 01/11/08 01:22:22 PM]
2.
back lit keys sounds kinda cool but to me its all about the feel of the keyboard/noise of the keys. Hope for the price it sells at that it feels godly.
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Posted by: Siberus
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Date: 01/10/08 09:27:06 PM]
3.
They're going to have to squeeze this thing into a 100$ price tag for anyone to be really interested. Sure, it's a neat little gimmick, but the gimmick isn't worth 1500$. As for me, I'm not going to be interested until they release a split version.
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Posted by: hedron
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Date: 01/11/08 11:19:54 AM]
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