Optimus Maximus: 113 keys, ready to pre-order

Ready to move around some funds in your accounts? Take out that loan from your mom? Tell your wife you just don't know why the account's a grand light? The Optimus Maximus is up for pre-order for $1564.37. Oh, and it's officially back to 113 keys (that's $13.84 per key, in case you didn't feel like busting out your HP financial calc). Remember, only 200 are being made during the first round, so if you want to be among the early batch to get theirs this December, now may be your only chance -- unless they're already sold out, that is.

Gallery: Optimus Maximus: 103 keys, ready to pre-order

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[Alex @ May 20th 2007 12:43PM]

I so totally want this and have the grand to spare, but there's no way I can justify spending that much for a keyboard when I'm getting a new computer soon. Especially since that computer is a Macbook Pro so it brings its own keyboard, heh.

[djs @ May 20th 2007 12:45PM]

holy crap, it has an engadget key

sold!

[Ryan Block @ May 20th 2007 12:47PM]

Yeah, we didn't photoshop that or anything! Guess Art likes Engadget!

[Eric Chiu @ May 20th 2007 7:32PM]

a single key for 10+ free engadget promo... that is, i've heard it 'ready to pre-order' for at least 3 times ...

[Tobias @ May 20th 2007 12:45PM]

Diggin the engadget shortcut key :D

[iSpork @ May 20th 2007 1:42PM]

I'm going to assume there will be a gizmodo key in THEIR version of the screenshots - think about it, this company (Art and co) has to try and get its free advertising from somewhere!

[Zadillo @ May 20th 2007 12:48PM]

Personally I think I'd still love to see them make a more affordable compromise keyboard..... that is, a keyboard with mostly regular keys, but a row of OLED keys for shortcuts, etc.

I think for touch-typists especially, the ability to change the keys isn't that useful, but for macro keys, etc. that might change from app to app, as well as shortcut keys that represent launchers for different apps, etc. it would be really nice.

And it seems like a keyboard like that could be relatively more affordable.

[Nikita @ May 20th 2007 2:37PM]

I read somewhere that they are making hybrid keyboards sometime soonish

[Alex @ May 20th 2007 12:50PM]

Now that I think about it, in a year or two, when i actually WOULD be interested in getting one of these, the price will probably be down to at least half, if not a quarter of the current price due to the way tech goes...

Anyhow, I'm REALLY interested and looking forward to reviews of this thing...

[AuroraAlpha @ May 20th 2007 12:50PM]

They deserve a prize for adding the K-Lock. This would 100% be stolen if anyone saw it without one.

I do feel betrayed however having been told it would be told it was 108 (wasn't it first 112?) keys. But since I can't afford to 'waste' money on this keyboard I will leave my complaints at that. It would also be a great way for people to learn an ABCD layout insaid of this QWERTY layout which was designed to slow you down.

[Mark @ May 20th 2007 1:40PM]

I'd understand if you were advocating the Dvorak layout over the QWERTY, but the ABC? C'mon, you'd end up having to type t's with your ring finger. Also, the claim that QWERTY was designed to slow you down is complete myth. There isn't a shred of substance to it. What actually happened was that the most commonly pressed keys were spread apart so that the near-lying hammers weren't used sequentially. Under the ABC, you'd end up with a whole lot of counter-intuitively placed keys. The only thing it's actually good for is teaching new people how to type.

[Chuckles McGee @ May 20th 2007 12:52PM]

$1500 for a keyboard that I can't even power from the USB port alone? Sure there's those pretty OLED keys, but I thought they were supposed to have low power draw.

Bleh, it's a good concept still. Hopefully increased production of OLEDs will cause a price drop and allow the Optimus to become more affordable. If the company doesn't go bankrupt, I bet the models will eventually be had for sub $500.

[Eric @ May 20th 2007 1:04PM]

Has anyone here actually preordered one?

[lyl545646 @ May 20th 2007 1:14PM]

Of course not, do you think that people who read engadget.com everyday are rich?

[Beefthing @ May 20th 2007 1:24PM]

Bill Gates reads Engadget :DD

[Ricochet @ May 20th 2007 8:11PM]

Judging by the amazing drop in Apple's share price when Engadget published the Leopard/iPhone delay piece last week, I'd say there are some people out there with $1500 to throw around if they chose to!

[randy @ May 20th 2007 1:18PM]

This keyboard makes NO sense. How can you be an efficient typist if you keep changing the keys around?

[Phil Perman @ May 20th 2007 1:19PM]

Everyone bashes it for the price, but I think its great that such a brilliant concept is finally being put into production. It would be nice to see a lower end model, but as with a lot of things, you start with the expensive flagship model to grab everyones attention, then aim for the mainstream appeal.

Oh, and r.e. power draw, yes a single OLED doesn't draw much power, but throw 113 of them together and it soon adds up. Combine that with the USB hub and SD reader and the 2.5w from your USB port just isn't enough.

[Eric @ May 20th 2007 1:21PM]

With my luck, I'd buy this and not like it, and then have to justify a $1500 keyboard that I don't use...

[sinergy @ May 20th 2007 1:27PM]

I already hate that single wire going out of my keyboard, why would I want so many others? bleh. And don't get me started on the price.... unless you have money to throw away...

[Ryan @ May 20th 2007 1:38PM]

For $1500, those better be buckling spring key actions or at the very least mechanical. I wouldn't pay more than $50 for a craptastic silicone nipple action, no matter how cool the key caps were.

[Neptune5 @ May 20th 2007 1:39PM]

lol products like this allow me to justify buying two iPhones :) one to use and the other to be locked away in it's casing for my mini museum like i do with my iPods.

[baaaaa @ May 20th 2007 4:23PM]

It is bad for teaching people how to type actually. If they learn on an abc, they will be worthless on qwerty/dvorak/whatever. This is why I never switch to dvorak - it would never be practical when I have to use a system not my own (such as at work) since I would hardly be able to type on the universal qwerty standard.

[John @ May 20th 2007 8:21PM]

That's what he meant by slowing you down. What Sholes thought was the most commonly-used letters were placed on opposite sides of the keyboard to make the mechanical locking of the hammers less likely.

And no keyboard layout is counter-intuitive if that's all you know. Had you been trained to type on an ABC layout, you would have thought that QWERTY was absolute nonsense.

[Tim @ May 20th 2007 9:46PM]

Nope, I checked. It's still an Engadget key, even on Gizmodo.

[Andrew @ May 20th 2007 1:42PM]

Does anyone know if there is a way to run this on Ubuntu? On the site it says windows/OS X only, and I'm running feisty fawn.

[wolf08 @ May 22nd 2007 3:40PM]

I'm guessing that when you store layouts (it has a sd slot for layouts) on the keyboard, you might be able to access them from linux. However, I don't think that they have a linux client. Hmm. Yuck!

[murray @ May 21st 2007 3:07PM]

You can probably run Ubuntu ON it.

[Andrew @ May 21st 2007 4:43PM]

hah, I meant to get the hot keys programmed with some sort of software like xp/mac.

[L.Rawlins @ May 20th 2007 1:43PM]

Damn, they've scaled the OLED's down so that they don't cover the whole key.

Looked cooler in the concept art... but then, so does everything.

With a bit of luck, and the influx of some money for the initial runs, we'll see cheaper boards with improved screens in the future.

Fingers crossed.

[RyanTV @ May 20th 2007 1:52PM]

It's a cool keyboard, but I think I'd rather pay my mortgage. :)

[crescentdavid @ May 20th 2007 1:56PM]

I think it's great eye candy but I can't understand why the design paid absolutely no attention to ergonomics. It seems to me the kinds of asymmetrical curves ergonomics demands of a keyboard would play quite well with this visual keyboard. Instead of organic goodness, we get rectangular generica.

Besides, I heard the rectangle, like the circle, has already been patented by another company ... :).

[RyanTV @ May 20th 2007 1:57PM]

Art should totally load up a kindergarden style layout... instead of A have an apple... Instead of a B have a boat and so on.

[Arthur @ May 20th 2007 2:03PM]

Nice! They finally labeled the "Any Key" that I keep hearing about. I always wondered what key that was.

[daniel @ May 20th 2007 2:04PM]

if someone paid this much for a keyboard i doubt they would let their kids gets their grubby fingers over it

[dudeInAmerica @ May 20th 2007 2:06PM]

Why in the holy name of God would I want a $1500 keyboard?

[Mr. B @ May 20th 2007 2:20PM]

Well, there are obviously some short-comings here, like the price... but this is looking pretty cool for a first generation product. Hopefully there will be enough people with 1.5k burning a hole in their pocket to fund futher development.

Perhaps a future iteration will have those "full screen" keys like the original concept art.

[AuroraAlpha @ May 20th 2007 2:52PM]

Yes I do. The keyboard was designed to seperate keys which could jam (Q+U) is a common example. Typewritters were also prone to breaking and if you see a fast typer you will often notice that they hit hte keys harder then someone who is typing slowly. Thus they wanted to reduce the chance of damage on typewritter so they put most of the keys on the left side. Your left hand is generaly slower and weaker which means that you have a hard time typing fast. You'll notice that e,t,s,r,a are all on the left side and are of the most used keys. Notice also that the most used volels are on the left (a+e).

I don't have any love of ABC, but I didn't know of any others off the top of my head that have also been claimed to be more efficent.

[Nish Vamadevan @ May 20th 2007 2:53PM]

This cost way too much... Not worth it imo.

[jimhuf @ May 20th 2007 3:25PM]

look at the space bar and any of the larger than standard key, they look crap, for that money they could do alot better. the original concept design a couple of years back was beautiful this is a piece of crap

[Nimajus Bagdonavicius @ May 20th 2007 3:37PM]

Damn, this is one of those expensive things you can't just download through torrent =(

[Kame_boy @ May 20th 2007 4:07PM]

Interesting. 1500 dollars for LCD keyboard? It's THE only peripheral you are not supposed to look at while using.

[Richard @ May 20th 2007 4:20PM]

so is this officially not vapourware any more? I want to see them stick this somewhere where the rays don't trace before I hand over any money.

[MayDay @ May 20th 2007 4:21PM]

It'll let you put a backspace key on the numeric keypad. That's worth something to me, though maybe not $1,500.

[bof0w @ May 20th 2007 4:29PM]

You mean you don't use the delete key?

[Ryan @ May 20th 2007 6:34PM]

You don't lose your Qwerty skills as long as you use them a little while you're learning Dvorak. I have a Dvorak keyboard (from Unicomp) on my Mac at home that I type about 90wpm on. I was about a 70wpm typer before I learned Dvorak and that went up to about 80wpm after.

I can switch seamlessly between both layouts without thinking. What I _can't_ do is type Dvorak on a Qwerty board or vice-versa. Can't type on labeless keyboards, either, ends up being a mishmash of both Qwerty and Dvorak.

But trust me, it's worth it.

[Derrick @ May 20th 2007 4:34PM]

hope the ship them to stores, than just internet...i really want to see it before i spend ANY amount of money on it

[Joel Laumans @ May 20th 2007 5:09PM]

It's about damn time...
now I just need to save up $1500... sigh

[Zeus the God @ May 20th 2007 5:48PM]

I love how none of the posts really explain what this keyboard is. From the pictures, however, I have gathered that each little key has little LCD screens in them so that you can change font/picture/symbol, etc.

Would I be correct in thinking so?

If so, I think this is a great concept, and will definitely have SOME customers, despite the outrageous price tag.

[andrew harrison @ May 20th 2007 6:52PM]

There's this wonderful technology they invented called "hyperlinks" which allows people to use words and images as "links" to relevant information.

If you'll read through the post again, you'll notice that the words "Optimus Maximus" link to http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/14/optimus-maximus-the-god-of-keyboards-unveiled/, which, whilst maybe a little confusing, at least gets you a little more information. The words "pre-order" take you to last weeks article at http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/16/optimus-maximus-pre-order-starts-may-20th/ which shows you even more info.