Optimus Maximus pre-order starts May 20th

Taking another small step from its sump of vapor, the Optimus Maximus keyboard is now ready for pre-pre-order. Beginning May 20th at 1500 Moscow time (0700 New York), Art. Lebedev will publish the keyboard's detailed specs and start accepting "limited pre-orders" for their $1,536 OLED keyboard. Regardless of that hefty price, we wouldn't be surprised to see all 400 keyboards available in December sell-out faster than a corporate rock star.

[Thanks, Andrew H.]

[Argot @ May 16th 2007 7:56AM]

Hey, leave Apple out of this!

[Nishant @ May 16th 2007 7:48AM]

engadget should be proud! they got their very own key on the left hand side!

seriously i wish i had 1600 dollars to bust on this.
or i could get a laptop and a ps3

overpriced much?

[wasabi @ May 16th 2007 7:48AM]

$1536 says they're gonna flop big time on this deadline.

[matthew rotherham @ May 16th 2007 7:49AM]

i will have 2 please!

[wasabi @ May 16th 2007 7:57AM]

@Argot: LOL! funny people up in the wee hours of the morning.

[togg @ May 16th 2007 8:12AM]

Argh it seems they have changed the display sizes :( all keys have the same small display size, and not like the pre-production version full-sized displays for example for the space key :((

[Magnulus @ May 16th 2007 8:14AM]

I know that if I were an industry professional at this point in my life with the money to spend, I would have pre-ordered immediately. As a regular user of Photoshop, Final Cut, Illustrator, (Aperture, maybe soon) etc, I would have benefited greatly from this keyboard. It's not always easy to remember what the keyboard shortcuts for five hundred different functions are.

I've been waiting for this keyboard for a while now. Yeah, it's hella expensive to begin with, but it would have to be. Early adopters of emerging technologies always pay more to sort of support the development that has been done. Once they've sold enought to cover initial expenses, I'm sure they'll slash the prices quite a bit on that model. After that, they'll develop a cheaper model than that, and so on until OLED is standard on most keyboards.

What I'm hoping for in the long run is maybe an e-ink version within a year or two. E-ink should be perfect for these keyboards, and would reduce the amount of power they suck greatly. Just a shame e-ink didn't emerge properly until recently.

[andrew harrison @ May 16th 2007 8:29AM]

"I know that if I were an industry professional at this point in my life with the money to spend, I would have pre-ordered immediately. "

I am an industry professional, and I suppose I do have the money to spend, but I'm not going to preorder it. $1600 is a lot of money for a keyboard, no matter how much your annual income is. I have no doubt it would be worth it, but I just can't bring myself to drop that amount of money on a keyboard.

[Cupajo @ May 16th 2007 8:56AM]

"I would have benefited greatly from this keyboard. It's not always easy to remember what the keyboard shortcuts for five hundred different functions are."

Just get yourself a logitech g15 for a hundred bucks and a pack of those little removeable dot label stickers for a buck twenty. There. I just saved you $1434.80

[Eric Chiu @ May 16th 2007 12:11PM]

Do you really look at the keys when you type? how old are you?!

[Magnulus @ May 16th 2007 1:31PM]

Eric Chiu: You really feel the need to make offensive remarks at people you don't even know? How old are YOU?

Actually, what I'm doing in my image- and video editing software is not actually typing. I'm sure you're familiar with the concept of shortcut keys. Well, Photoshop has a LOT of them. So does all my other software. I can't help it if you don't use your computer for anything but writing stupid, mis-informed comments to people, that's your issue. Obviously not your only one.

[TadaO @ May 16th 2007 8:56AM]

How much did you idiots think a OLED keyboard would cost you? $70??? you guy's are dumb as hell.

[o29 @ May 16th 2007 3:00PM]

If you're going to try to be condescending, at least try not to use terrible grammar.

[McGinley @ May 16th 2007 9:20AM]

Why is everyone complaining about the price?Theyre obviously not targeting people who wouldnt pay that sort of money, which is why theyre only making 400 of them.

[sendmeaeuro @ May 16th 2007 9:30AM]

Engadget better set one of these keyboards up for a worldwide competition!

Do you hear me Engadget?!!!

http://sendmeaeuro.awardspace.com

[shmengie @ May 16th 2007 10:19AM]

$1500 for an 'any' key is a bargain! or maybe one of those funny ones that the secretaries have that say 'panic.' what a riot!

[shmengie @ May 16th 2007 10:20AM]

finally, i can have that 'any' key!

[aeo @ May 16th 2007 11:12AM]

I predict a new breed of virus that randomly shifts the key mappings around and/or a trojan that displays little advertisements on each key's OLED. :-)

[Ayle @ May 16th 2007 11:50AM]

....I wish I had the kind of money that allow you to buy that keyboard... The only thing that bother me is the 5-year lifetime....

[tekdroid @ May 16th 2007 12:02PM]

no word on the reliability of the keyboard? No beige? No standard curved keys like on a regular keyboard? Keys don't look like they can move down far, very laptop-like.

I'll try out a store demo before plonking down the cash ;)

[Magnulus @ May 16th 2007 1:32PM]

Eric Chiu: You really feel the need to make offensive remarks at people you don't even know? How old are YOU?

Actually, what I'm doing in my image- and video editing software is not actually typing. I'm sure you're familiar with the concept of shortcut keys. Well, Photoshop has a LOT of them. So does all my other software. I can't help it if you don't use your computer for anything but writing stupid, mis-informed comments to people, that's your issue. Obviously not your only one.

[Kevin Williams @ May 16th 2007 1:07PM]

Who looks at their keyboard while typing or playing games? And how many hours will someone waste mapping every single key?

I can't wait to hear the first story of someone creating a $1536 paperweight by accidentally spilling a drink on their keyboard.

[The Dewd @ May 16th 2007 5:41PM]

When they first released the promo on this keyboard, they mentioned that the price was going to be comparable to a decent cellphone. I assumed that meant somewhere around $500. What cellphone has ever cost $1536? I'll take some of whatever it is they are smoking!

[Brian McBride @ May 16th 2007 1:25PM]

Hahaha. You know what is even funnier? When Optimus vanishes and there are a bunch of $1500 keyboards without updated drivers preventing them to use the keyboard anyway.

Heck, it is bad enough getting a good working driver for an nVidia card on Vista.

[Eric Chiu @ May 16th 2007 4:49PM]

Magnulus: Unfortunately I'm in tha creative industry.

Wacom Cintiq, trackballs and touch-screens are what we normally use. Not a stupid $1500 keyboard.

Btw... apparently you are not smart enough to understand why a short'cut key is called a short'cut key. It's 'short' because it saves your time, not costing more to find out which key is which based on its fancy logo.

[Jean-Michel Decombe @ May 16th 2007 2:50PM]

Nice. Lebedev should also patent the amazing incrementing counter to launch.

[Magnulus @ May 16th 2007 4:59PM]

Still with the insults, hm?

Not everyone can have as wonderful a memory as you. you may be able to remember every single shortcut in the five-ten different programs you use, but my pitiful brain can't. To me, that makes it worth it. You let stupid people like me waste their money on useless keyboards, and you can spend your money buying a machine to pat yourself on the back for being so clever.

[andrew harrison @ May 16th 2007 5:49PM]

ZING

[Cykeo @ May 16th 2007 10:50PM]

BURN

[jimgirardi @ May 16th 2007 11:00PM]

Is it just me or are the OLED screens on this version MUCH SMALLER than in the original concepts?

[Wired1 @ May 17th 2007 2:21PM]

@Argot

LOL! to bad everyone is not as quickwitted when responding to trolls. They would become extinct ;)

[busywookiesan @ May 18th 2007 1:29PM]

i think this keyboard is lame. i bet one of it's clones will turn out to be a lot cooler, homebrew or not.

[PJE @ May 23rd 2007 1:09PM]

With reprogrammable key graphics why do they need so many keys? I use a Happy Hacking Lite 2 keyboard with half as many keys. Just add a couple of mode keys and you could halve the cost.