Optimus Maximus keyboard for laptops? Yes, please.
By Darren Murph 
posted Mar 3rd 2008 6:17PM
posted Mar 3rd 2008 6:17PM
[Thanks, Maksim]
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with a new blu-ray drive, this should reduce battery time to about 10 minutes--with the screen at half-brightness.
i'll pass on both for now, thanks.
They better include a "maximus" battery with it.
But, would it not be easier to make a full keyboard touchscreen similar to the Ipod Touch's?
Sure it would be expensive but I doubt it would make the computer more than $2000 since the technology is rather old.
If done that way, the computer would be able to use the extra thickness of the absent keyboard keys as space for a battery and it would also be as thin as a macbook air possibly.
I think you mean this, a future version of the optimus
http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus-tactus/
Do you not realise how horrible that would be to type on?
It's ok on a phone but on a full laptop/PC, it would be terrible.
A full touchscreen the size of a keyboard?? That would eat more power than the main display! Say goodbye to your battery life.
Great! Now the keyboard on your laptop will cost more than the rest of the laptop!
Yes it is a really cool idea, however that would probably up the price of my $2,000 laptop to $3,500. And in a 2-3 years when I get a replacement laptop... I am also out my expensive keyboard!
Yeah, but just think if you put one in a MacBook Air... Engadget would need scientific notation to report the price.
i r SOOO expensiv
@fiYY: i agree with you in words and avatar
LOL at Fubar. If it makes the Macbook Air that much more expensive, what would it do to an X300? Would you have to invent new math just to express a number that high?
Nah, just use A(g64, g64) { http://xkcd.com/207/ }
It won't need a bigger battery, it is OLED, and by the time it comes out, the laptop LCD will be to, so it will actually have better battery life.
Oh my god, I so want this on a MacBook Pro! I'm a photographer and videographer, this would make Photoshop/Illustrator/Final Cut Pro/DVD Studio Pro sooooooo much easier!
Too bad is still a half a decade out... At best...
then why does the full-size optimus require its own power adapter?
The Laptop Screen will be OLED, rather... It'd be kind of odd if the LCD was OLED (lit by a CFL or LED even!) wouldn't it? I mean, can an OLED LCD be lit by a CFL or LED? Not AFAIK...
WTF?
That just wouldn't make a while lot of sense IMHO...
God love acronyms...
your post looks like it was written by 2 different people....
Your post just guarranteed M and CUBSWILLWIN :Highly Ranked" grades.
I hope you're happy for yourself.
"then why does the full-size optimus require its own power adapter?"
Because a USB port provides 500mA current (at 5V = 2.5W power), at most.
The Optimus Maximus (seriously, what a marketing name) requires more power than a standard keyboard, not more than, say, an LCD screen.
@m
Although a USB can't provide enough power for the keyboard, still, OLED significantly uses much less energy than LCD, if the laptop display is made out of OLED too I say that makes it up for it
Ah nice, say hello to a slow refreshing keyboard in 2011.
where are the f1 through f12 buttons gonna go?
They're along the top, it's just they're displaying icons in the picture.
I know that. I mean in the picture they don't have any
goto 2commentsUp
what would be really awesome is that since these OLEDs are flexible and thin, if they put a sandbox type of thing under OLED that can change the shapes of the keys, now that's pr0n
Cool, but god thatd be expensive, the keyboard is worth almost as much as my main laptop as is.
Oh snap, i take that back it costs 2x as much as my laptop.
i don't think old dudes say "oh snap" ;p
yeah they are not as hip as us and are lingo. We know how to get down with it. ;)
lol that got low ranked? guess the evening crowd's the sensitive types. who knew?
What I would LOVE to see is a laptop using the Optimus Tactile that is still in concept. Wouldn't it be sweet to have a laptop that when opened it only has two flat deep black smooth surfaces and the when turned on images are all over it. on the lower panel the keyboard drawin itself on the upper panel the desktop fading in. Going into a dvd player app, the lower panel zooms out the keyboard and turns into a scene selection menu. THAT IS SOMETHING I WOULD DEFINITELY GO STAND IN LINE TO BUY IT.
"Like on a piano, since there are no keys to look at when typing, your brain will quickly adapt and memorize the key positions. Within a few short weeks users increase their typing accuracy and find themselves typing up to 100% faster."
So why would I want this junk? Isn't Optimus Maximus for stupid people who can't remember where the keys are, and have to look? For me, the more distracting it is, the more annoying it is (especially when it comes to something like typing).
PS. The quote comes from Das Keyboard, a "blank" keyboard: http://www.daskeyboard.com
Given that this keyboard actually sucks as a keyboard, I'm gonna say no thanks. Give me a keyboard that's actually pleasant to type on any day of the week. That's something I'd pay more for, not a bunch of OLED's.
Saitek Eclipse (the original, it's a lot more solid) and Logitech G15 gaming. Both are awesome... if you were actually looking for a reference. Just be prepared to raise your chair if you pick the G15. The keys are angled down even with the keyboard legs propped up. Oh, and it's not cheap. However, the Eclipse can be had for $30-$40.
If they made the keyboard detachable, it would be worth it. The trick to key keyboard is to use eInk instead of LEDs (once the picture is set, no battery juice at all).
Nothing like a several thousand dollar laptop that'll be outdated in a year with a several thousand dollar keyboard that won't (or not as outdated for that matter). I hate these keyboards, they are ridiculous, and I hope they fail at all they may or may not be able to do.
LMAO...sorry....I Care!
What about e-paper keys? It only uses electricity to change the image shown on the display, which would only be when you press the fn key, or change a key around...
Wouldn't be color though. I think I can manage with my superscript numpad and fn key for now...
I was thinking the same thing. The battery life would be great if it used e-ink, and it wouldnt be that bad in black and white anyway
Optimus Prime's gonna come around and kick this keyboard's ass.
I'm Michael Bay and I approved this message.
Engadgets review confirms that this is a special purpose keyboard not suitable for regular everyday typing... and you want to put it on a laptop?
No thanks.
The only thing stranger than the Optimus Maximus is Engadget's infatuation with it.
I know, right? It's super weird that a site called "Engadget" would actually be interested in stuff like gadgets. Honestly, I can't get my head around it. Why the infatuation with gadgets, Engadget? Why?!
Using the Laptopimus Maximus was a mixed bag. "It wasn't that the keyboard didn't do everything you want it to do", said an anonymous reviewer, "but I just couldn't get used to a laptop that was 4 inches thick and weighed 20lbs."
Battery life would be the serious issue ... I'd take an E-INK keyboard any day now, though :)
Geoff, I'm pretty sure that's the best avatar I've ever seen on Engadget.
Sure...then your battery life will probably last only 45mins
That laptop battery is gonna have to pull a matrix and be hardwired to our body.
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned this... what about laptop chassis flex? even with short-travel laptop keys, sometimes there's the possibility that the keys can come in contact with the screen if the laptop is handled incorrectly. From the looks of it, the maximus keys are pretty damn rigid and require a large amount of space because of the OLEDs. Of course, I agree with everyone about the battery life and price too...
The Optimus Maximus costs more than some laptops.
I dont see how they are going to get it in a laptop without it costing $5,000 minimum.
If anyone does try it out, it will probably be apple, albeit at a premium price, lol.
Yeah, I LOL at all the criticisms about battery life, price, blah this and that.
But, if Apple came out with it everyone will forget all that and be all over it.
Because Apple would probably figure out how to power this beast off of a standard laptop battery.
The Tz's (pictured) is awesome as is.
If they're gonna change laptop keyboards, makit back lit and figure out a way for it not to consume too much juice. thats all I ask
Sure this is great for all those Adobe products, but I can finally have an Apple key next to the Microsoft key next to a custom FreeBSD key!
Why not an E-Ink keyboard? When is someone going to build one of those? I think it would be a LOT cheaper!
NO!!! What I want is an ergonomic (like the wave) keyboard layout so I can actually do some work on a laptop!!
Why do you guys at engadget want to see it on a laptop? When you guys got the current keyboard I remember Ryan commenting that typing on it was an exhausting effort. I don't know about the depth of the current keys but I imagine that making them laptop-key-thin would be more costly to develop and deploy.