Phantom Lapboard now on sale, suckers rejoice
By Nilay Patel 
posted Dec 15th 2007 2:16PM
posted Dec 15th 2007 2:16PM
[Thanks, Ray Z.]
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Oddly whenever I imagine the telephone ordering and support line for Phantom I can't help but imagine the Ugandan chap off of Fonejacker..
Give us your monies.. please.
Gooooood aftanuun Madame, I'm George, I'm calling from your baaank.
anyone interested in their current stock price? http://www.marketwatch.com/quotes/phei
@billy bob thornton
Holy crap! Buy 'em up now; those figures must be a stock broker's dream!
It is overpriced for a company that is worth nothing.
It's hard to put any credibility in a company that was part of a pump-and-dump stock scam...
(as if anyone had any trust in them to begin with)
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUKN1041045120071210?rpc=44&pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true
Here's some more disturbing info on this "company"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_Entertainment
Hey, Ms. Cleo told me it's "teh hawtness" (her leet-speak, not mine) so I'm in.
You know, this could also be re-branded as "Tommy Lee's Penis Typing Table." Now *that* would move some units (and sell some of this crap, too).
I don't like it. looks uncomforable.
Uncomfortable, sorry.. strange IE glitches
You mean brain fart for not proofreading your post? :P
Well everything just kind of turned blue and I couldn't fix it till I hit Add Comments, but yeah, that too
You mean, "Sorry - I should have been using Firefox"?
Exactly.
Does it get bundled with Duke Nukem Forever?
damn, man, that is the best LOL
after reading pretty much the whole site. it is very scary. nothing ads up. dates, prices, nothing. they have the store that only sells the keyboard but offer other services. their dates on things are all over the place
the customer service page is creepy.
why is this even posted here? this is an obvious scam
Ha, one of the features:
"
• Powerful digital rights management (DRM) solution that ensures seamless delivery of digital content to consumers while protecting against piracy
"
If they add some securities fraud protection I'm sold...
Uuh, thats for the phantom game service. Which sounds equally creepy. If this 'product' is supposed to be urnning embedded windows, why does it need an existing XP machine? And why do you need cable AND broadband? This site could be better thought out, especially for a scammer...
I still don't understand how anyone would actually want one of these.
can someone explain why the keyboard is tilled?
and how does rotating 360 degree going to help left handed people? does that mean people who are left handing type with the keyboard upside down?
for god sake, someone please from china make the same key board and sell it for 19.99$
"and how does rotating 360 degree going to help left handed people? does that mean people who are left handing type with the keyboard upside down?"
wow. words fail me.
...no, wait. here they come:
k, i understand your powers of mental acuity might not be all there today, so i'll go slow for you. Imagine not the keyboard rotating, but the lapboard rotating around it.
...i'll let you think on that for a minute or two...
ready?
great, now for step 2. with the keyboard staying still, mr. left-hander takes the lapboard and rotates it 180 degrees.
Voila: a left-handed lapboard. Genius.
...i'll be here all day, so keep 'em coming...
lol
Last time I checked, most people time with both hands, the whole idea of a left-handed keyboard is bogus anyway.
The whole concept of the lapboard is stupid in the first place. The solution for a keyboard-and-mouse control scheme from a distance has been introduced a long time ago, and it consists of a cordless keyboard and a motion sensing air-mouse. Perhaps the notion of the lapboard still made sense when it was first announced, when those technologies were still obscure, with only Gyration making most of the equipment. But now that the idea has been popularized with Microsoft's media center remote keyboard and Nintendo's Wiimote, there is really no place anymore for a contraption like the lapboard.
Couldn't agree more. I have a gyration mini keyboard and airmouse--guaranteed to work better than this piece of shit and takes up far less space as well.
Have you ever tried a FPS with an air mouse?
It doesn't work very well.
@Jesse: Have you ever tried a FPS with a lapboard?
It doesn't work very well.
An air mouse is a different control scheme than a mouse, to be sure, and games need to recognize it to fully support it.
to Brett:
thank you for being patient with me. i am a software engineer but i still fail to realize the advantage of the tilled keyboard, except maybe you can have the mouse under the keyboard, but it is un-natural type with the tilled keyboard.
i think the company's website failed to show people the usefulness of this keyboard.
ps: to the chinese copy cat:
just make a keyboard and add a thin slide board that can slide out from the left side of the right side of the keyboard so user can put the mouse on it, like this:
|----|--------|----|
|mice|keyboard|mice|
|----|--------|----|
haha, it seems like my idea is already better than the lapboard, thats sad.
it's tilted so you can have a surface to use the mouse on underneath the keyboard, since this is intended to be used from your couch, not on a desk.
What a horrible product! They should have just killed this thing off years ago!
Actually everyone liked the lapboard when it was demoed. 50 bucks may cause some impulse buys.
But 129 bucks +
no shipping date +
expired security certificate on the store site +
Phantom's history of not delivering +
other devices out there that pretty much does the same thing for a lot less =
a warehouse full of product that won't be moving.
/OK, so the chances of them actually having these things already made are slim.
//OK, so the chance of them actually having a warehouse is even slimmer.
///OK, so they are most likely also operating out of some room in someone's basement also
////OK, chances are that the room also holds the boiler for heating the house...
Where are some similar products? I actually want something like this.
Do they sell Medison Celbebrity USD 150.00 laptops as well?
I just bought one, I'll be sure and leave a full review once I get it!
*if
...and 400 dollars has already disappeared from my checking account, that didn't take long at all!
(I'm really stupid enough to give my money to them)
whoops, i mean NOT stupid enough...
They've been excepting (pre)orders for a long long time now. This is old news.
*accepting, excuse me.
22 degree tilt? No thanks. Frankly I see any regular wireless kb and mouse as a better solution. Hard surfaces and smaller keyboards are not hard to come by. 22 degree tilts easy to avoid.
well, they have an office listed in NY, i think engadget should send someone there to check it out...
Where in NY? (sorry, I'm being lazy)
Phantom Entertainment, Inc.
222 Grace Church St.
Suite 302 # 1000135
Port Chester, NY 10573
U.S.A
(866)452-9883 (phone/fax)
i say that engadget either send a writer/editor or bribe a closeby reader with goodies to go down there to see whats up
I'd say just buy a good keyboard and mouse and a cutting board. Keyboard in lap and cutting board on the couch beside you- how could you go wrong?
ill buy it if it can give me lapdances
I think the company's name says it all: "Phantom", as in a ghost, a figment of the imagination, or denoting something, esp. something illegal, that is done by an unknown person. All 3 definitions seem to fit for this company. It will be interesting to see if this company actually delivers a real product.
The SSL Cert is invalid for the store :0 SHOCKING.
I'm sure with a little tweaking you can make a Splitfish work on your PC.
Can you? I've always wanted a FragFX, but I don't have a PC. :(
another thing I noticed is they mention nothing about it not even being available when clicking through the "buy" area.
scumbags
I must be the only person that thinks the Phantom lapboard is actually a good idea.
Having a wireless laptop on your lap while you type is no problem but using a mouse is a pain in the ass because you have to find a surface.
its just awkward to use a conventional KB&M on the lap, and I'm not going to settle for a crappy air mouse. An air mouse can't do $#!# for me when I'm trying to play twitch shooters on the PC.
The tilted keyboard only seems unnatural to those who haven't actually though about how it would operate. The tilt would actually be more ergonomic than having it flat on your lap and, hence, more comfortable.
Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to find my flame shield... since there are a lot of users here who follow the heard and bash what ever tech is popular to bash.
how is a keyboard with one side several centimetres higher than the other more ergonomic?
Its more ergonomic because the wrist doesn't have to be turned flat out, as they do with conventional keyboards. If you look at good quality ergonomic keyboards you'll noticed that they are raised in the center between where each hand is placed and from that peak it slopes slightly until the edges. The slope looks really extreme on the Phantom board because the whole board is tilted to one side to accommodate the mouse underneath, but if you are playing a shooter you wouldn't be using that other, highly raised, side of the keyboard.
Just to reiterate Spinfusor's comment - this is old old old news. They've been accepting (pre)orders for over a year. And still not a single review or comment confirming anyone has ever actually received one. Stay far, far away...
Okay, I've actually had one of these in my hands.
I was in a focus group a couple years ago, about a "mysterious, unlabled game system" and they brought out a Phantom. I could see that the concept as a whole was doomed, but the lapboard thing was Brilliant. No, really.
Don't think of typing emails or surfing with it, but as a keyboard-and-mouse gaming peripheral, it rocks. .., really. I spent most of the rest of the focus group with the thing, turning all around and taking a couple of rough measurements, to make one of my own.
Even said to the moderator, and the guys behind the one-way mirror that they should develop the lapboard and forget about the console.
Still..., $129?!? It ain't THAT groovy.
It's not really new to have people with impressions on it, anyone at E3 that went into their booth was subjected to trying it out along with their service.
It wasn't anything worth commenting about then and it certainly still isn't. The keyboard was stock in design (not low-profile at all) and the mouse pad felt like it was short-changing me given the low DPI they were using.
what happened to the good old stable table and gaffertape :)
sort of like Jo's idea but you have the beanbag cusiony thing to support the keyboard "table" :)
If everything else doesn't scream scam enough, check out this website....
https://www.myuspostbox.com/home.php?lang=eng
It's a mail forwarding company that operates out of, (wait for it....)
222 Grace Church St Suite 302
Port Chester, N.Y. 10573
So why would a real company use a mail forwarding service?
If we all pooled our money together I think we could buy this company. At the current stock price wouldn't it only be like $10,000. The patent for the lapboard is at least worth that much. Anyone else in? I bet the patent only has another couple of years left though.