Optimus 103 Back In Color With OLED’s…Pre-orders Delayed Until February

December 8th, 2006

11 Comments Written by Ryan

Optimus Keyboard The Optimus blog just announced that the long awaited keyboard will now be back in color and will use OLED’s for each of the keys. This news comes about one week after they announced that the keyboard was initially going to be black and white with a pricetag of $1200. That also means that they will not be taking pre-orders next week and have instead pushed it back until February of 2007.

There is still one big question though, how much will this thing cost? If the black and white version was already at $1200 for the first batch of pre-orders I can only imagine how awful the color OLED keyboard is going to be. However, they are extremely smart to scrap the idea of doing the black and white version because hardly anyone will spend that kind of money on a keyboard, but if they do they are going to want the best version possible…not something that will be out-dated in two months.

Every time I see a picture of the OLED Optimus keyboard it almost makes my mouth water, but I would have to be nuts (or a millionaire) to see the value in buying one. If they do find that the idea is a success I could see some of the larger companies, like Logitech, stepping in and finding an innovative way to make their own version that is somewhat affordable.

So what is the maximum price that you would pay for one of these keyboards? I think my limit is somewhere around $300 but even that would be hard to stomach.

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Tags: Hardware

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December 8th, 2006 at 12:32 pm Rub3X

I’ve given up all hope. He posts updates on a live journal. Talk about crap..
December 8th, 2006 at 1:15 pm Ryan (Author)

Yeah, the whole Live Journal thing takes away from people focusing on the product. I give them credit for openly blogging about the whole design process but it wouldn’t have been that hard to setup a blog on their own site.
December 8th, 2006 at 1:55 pm nogg3r5

I hope this is the final product now. Im fed up with being mucked about!
December 8th, 2006 at 2:30 pm Max (All-Star)

I would probably have to think about paying up to $250 for a shiny new toy like that. I wouldn’t buy a black/white one but the color one would cost upwards of $2000 imho (if a black/white version is $1200). My guess though, like Ryan said, is that Logitech (or some other company) might make a similar version for much cheaper, so I would wait around for that.
December 8th, 2006 at 2:43 pm shirizaki

And it’ll probably be of the same quality as their “hotkey” product: a usb to serial port inside of the keyboard. And you probably have to manually write the icons and functions to the keys at worst, or have to go through a program interface and download the proper “themes” at best. I see this being a bother for people who’d like to just “plug and play”.

At least this is more entertaining than waiting by the mailbox for my beta of the Phantom Gaming Console.
December 8th, 2006 at 3:18 pm Inferno_str1ke (All-Star)

This thing is turning into a farce. It was announced to be pre-ordered but in a bit of a crap version, then they say it’s going to be as it used to be but push it back again. I’d far prefer to have a good keyboard that I could use through my WiFi dongle (and didn’t come with a bloody mouse).

Well, that or one with [silentfox.org]
December 8th, 2006 at 4:50 pm Ryan (Author)

shirizaki wrote:

And it’ll probably be of the same quality as their “hotkey” product: a usb to serial port inside of the keyboard. And you probably have to manually write the icons and functions to the keys at worst, or have to go through a program interface and download the proper “themes” at best. I see this being a bother for people who’d like to just “plug and play”.

At least this is more entertaining than waiting by the mailbox for my beta of the Phantom Gaming Console.

Yeah, that is the other problem. The people who would actually take the time to develop a nice set of keys for the keyboard are going to be the ones that can’t afford it.

Inferno_str1ke wrote:

This thing is turning into a farce. It was announced to be pre-ordered but in a bit of a crap version, then they say it’s going to be as it used to be but push it back again. I’d far prefer to have a good keyboard that I could use through my WiFi dongle (and didn’t come with a bloody mouse).

Well, that or one with [silentfox.org]
Wireless power would surely be nice but they can’t even get enough power through the USB cable so they are forced to use a power adapter as well. So there is even more cable clutter for your desk.

December 9th, 2006 at 9:14 am OldManDeath (All-Star)

This is great technology and like any new technology, it will be expensive at first. It will be interesting to see what Logitech and other companies do in the future. I will do the wait and see approach on this one.
December 9th, 2006 at 12:43 pm Someone

anyone got a link to the manufacturer’s site?
December 9th, 2006 at 5:43 pm Anonymous

Someone wrote:

anyone got a link to the manufacturer’s site?

[artlebedev.com]