Hands-on with ASUS' Eee Keyboard

Remember that Eee Keyboard that was announced during CES? ASUS did itself proud by bringing a few to CeBIT this year, and we were able to swing by and take a look. The 5-inch, 800 x 480 touchpad was looking mighty fine, and the Atom N270 within seemed plenty powerful. It's a touch hard to believe that ASUS was able to shove a 16GB SSD, 1GB of RAM, WiFi and Bluetooth modules, VGA / HDMI ouputs and a few USB 2.0 ports within a slim, elegant keyboard, but somehow or another it did. Oh, and the actual typing experience wasn't bad from the few moments we spent practicing this here post.

Gallery: Hands-on with ASUS' Eee Keyboard

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[sam arieta @ Mar 3rd 2009 10:00PM]

Welcome to the future

[SamsungCentral @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:42AM]

Should be "Welcome... to the world of tomorrow!"

[Ari Moshe @ Mar 3rd 2009 5:33AM]

Caffeinated bacon? Baconated grapefruit? ADMIRAL Crunch??

[Joe H @ Mar 3rd 2009 5:34AM]

The future? The world of tomorrow?

Uh, things like this have existed forever. Sure, it's a whole lot sleeker now, but things like this have existed forever. Here's just a more recent example: http://www.cybernetman.com/Default.cfm?DocID=9000

Back when I used to get PC Magazine (at least 7 years ago), there were a ton of advertisements in the back sections for these "Zero footprint PCs".

Hell, you could say the C64 was the same as one of these, really.

[Dummy00001 @ Mar 3rd 2009 7:23AM]

> Back when I used to get PC Magazine (at least 7 years ago), there were a ton of advertisements in the back sections for these "Zero footprint PCs".

But the solutions in past cost a premium. And for premium price you would get a non-upgradable PC. Essentially notebook. This thing here you can't upgrade too - yet the price is expected to be much much lower. I think price would be in line with generic office PC box.

[chefgon_ign @ Mar 3rd 2009 7:50AM]

The Commodore 64 had a built-in touch screen, HDMI out, and 720p video decoding? Holy crap, I just used mine to play 8-bit games.

[Jack @ Mar 3rd 2009 7:59AM]

heh, wonder how many cassettes 1 hour of HD video would take up :p

[Wes @ Mar 3rd 2009 9:03AM]

At ~ 1 megabyte per cassette, and ~4 gigabytes for an hour of 720p, only about 4000 or so.....

but you'd have to flip them over, so that would be a pain.

[frauhottelmann @ Mar 3rd 2009 9:51AM]

If you had an automatic 4000 cassette changer, it wouldn't be so bad^^

[Greg @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:36AM]

This Is Nice!

[Maverick-DBZ- @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:36AM]

Looks great! Any idea on battery life?

[Bruce C @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:15PM]

If you look closely, any of the pictures with the display on requires it to be plugged in from the looks of it. So based on that I don't think it has a built in battery source, at least none that is readily visible. It is still a neat device though, if the price point on it is reasonable then having one would be worthwhile...hook it up to a bigger monitor and it could be a system you let your friends use that come over and wanna surf the web etc...

Only drawback would be price...will Asus keep it under $200?...they would almost have to I think to attract much of a market for it.

[HemanC @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:27PM]

$200 for an Atom with 5" screen? That might low ball it a bit much.

[tchapp @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:39AM]

should have called it the

kEEEboard.

[TREX6662k5 @ Mar 3rd 2009 5:30AM]

Your hired!

[CJ @ Mar 3rd 2009 6:27AM]

Commodore Seeexty-Four.

[Andrew Robinson @ May 15th 2009 10:16AM]

hmmm?

[Alex Chopra @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:40AM]

So its a computer integrated into a keyboard with a monitor off to the right of the keypad? Just making sure I understand this correctly? Whats the price point for this?

[loosely_coupled @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:42AM]

Yea, what is this thing??

[Karan @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:46AM]

its not that hard to believe, the keyboard body itself houses the main components that would otherwise be in a cabinet i.e. the motherboard, cpu, ram, etc. Its a big ass keyboard, I don't find it that surprising that could fit the whole thing in it. It has been achieved in smaller machines. However the concept is genius.

[Anthony @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:48AM]

"Today ASUS introduced the world to the Eee Keyboard, a full-sized keyboard with built-in PC including WiFi (and Ethernet), speaker, mic, and 5-inch interactive display and touchscreen"

it might help to click the blue links engadget provides us to describe such things :D

[loosely_coupled @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:57AM]

@anthony

or perhaps they could describe the damn thing in the actual Engadget post..

[Vince @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:44PM]

I think the main display isn't that 5" one...i think you're supposed to hook up a monitor like any other PC, the interactive display just an admitted cool extra feature.

[Benson @ Mar 3rd 2009 5:37PM]

Think of this as a C128 with a Sony FD-280 and some duct-tape.

[Anthony @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:44AM]

RAWRRRRR I WANNNTT ITT !!!!!! ;P

how convenient to have the start menu and quick tasks and icons...all right next to me :D

[mikepegg @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:44AM]

I've been blabbering on about the laptop under keyboard being an obvious advancement for years...glad to see one in the flesh and even with a nice lil' screen on the side too.

I could see this being very popular given a semi-reasonable price point. Somehow I can see the Apple fanboys liking this.

[Karan @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:48AM]

its a touchpad, like the ones on a laptop, it ain't a screen.

[Karan @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:49AM]

wtf....y isnt there a edit or delete button! BTW i take my words above back.

[mikepegg @ Mar 3rd 2009 5:02AM]

If you look at the gallery and see the previous press shots it says its a 5" touch screen.

[Richard Glitter @ Mar 3rd 2009 8:25PM]

@Karan - edit button??

[Robotochan @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:46AM]

It's like the Amiga 1200 2.0 but lacking Workbench which makes me a saaaaaaaaaaaaaaad panda...

[dhytspam @ Mar 3rd 2009 10:09AM]

aw man I made so many back up floppys of that in the day and still manage to misplace them in my floppy disk mountain.

[John @ Mar 3rd 2009 12:11PM]

Ah, those were the days! I remember paying big bucks for a 75 MB HD for my A1200 back in the early-90's! ;)

[Brian @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:46AM]

Want. Want. Want. Want. Want.

Want!

[David @ Mar 3rd 2009 6:17AM]

That I would like to have ... That's probably better than a laptop in so many ways. I can see that being an IT technician's dream.

[mocax @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:52AM]

Atari ST lives again!

sort of....

[omgjacob @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:53AM]

this is god damn crazy.. like wow.. i might get this for home pc use.. just pair this with a 15-20inch lcd and have a nice kitchen pc

[Mitch @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:54AM]

Wireless HDMI and I would be sold.

[mikepegg @ Mar 3rd 2009 5:03AM]

previous concept shots had it with Wireless HDMI... wonder if that ever made it...

[Unknown @ Mar 3rd 2009 4:08PM]

It has Wireless HDMI. At least according to the Giz of Modo. Of course Engadget has much nicer shots of it.

[semog @ Mar 3rd 2009 3:09PM]

The new version of the old Schneider Euro PC (http://www.heimcomputer.de/english/pcs/europc.html)

[Erik @ Mar 3rd 2009 5:04AM]

You know, I was looking at getting a cheap, little desktop to hook up to my tv for hulu and browsing, but now...I just want this.

[noname @ Mar 3rd 2009 8:23AM]

so if i understand it well, it is not just a keyboard, it is all-in-one computer. If so, it is great for some type of usage, but not as great for many others - e.g. gamers / architects ... would like something like this for their normal very powerfull computer, where they can use the touch screen as external navi panel (with menus for architects, with e.g. guns for gamers).
But i like this, it is definitely a hole on the market - something like Apple Mini, but far better - you can use it even without pluging into external monitor or keybord. I would just prefer something like docking station port - easy one click sollution for connection of external display, power, usb (printer, mouse, cd...) - otherwise it would be very stupid for traveling and always need to connect all this.
For some other usage i would like ability to connect batery pack, and some solution for wireless video (so e.g. i could plug some device to my normal TV and use this "keyboard" for my computer-for-tv needs

[erwin @ Mar 3rd 2009 5:26AM]

i don't see the point of a computer-in-a-keyboard. i bet after 10-15 min. your neck would start to hurt by looking all the time to the right

[mikepegg @ Mar 3rd 2009 5:31AM]

I would assume as its a Media Center keyboard its advised to be used with a media center external screen for 95% of its use.

[pika2000 @ Mar 3rd 2009 5:37AM]

LOL, this redefines all-in-one. Asus should do a comparison of this with the iMac, just like Apple mocking the Dell XPS.

[Autumn Autist @ Mar 3rd 2009 5:40AM]

Can't understand why they use windows instead of a kde plasma tailored for the 5inches screen

[thedesolate1 @ Mar 3rd 2009 12:26PM]

Dont worry thats the beauty of not using apple hardware you can jump through less hoops to stuff the OS you know you really want.

[ShuraKh @ Mar 3rd 2009 5:46AM]

Replace this touchpad with .. (can I say it?) with iPhone dock place. would be lovely.

[jeesusfreek @ Mar 3rd 2009 5:53AM]

am i the only one really impressed with cooling and thermal management here? all the other computer in a keyboard concepts have huge ass bases to accomodate small fans. this is crazy thing. i'd hope it doesn't get hella hot sittin over the nether-regions though