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Art Lebedev Readies $1,000 'Bargain' Keyboard With Screens for Keys

by Terrence O'Brien on July 2, 2010 at 04:00 PM

Optimus Popularis by Art Lebedev
You may or may not remember all the hoopla that surrounded the Optimus Maximus, the first keyboard to consist entirely of tiny OLED screens, which allowed users to alter the layout of the keyboard while displaying a variety of small, animated widgets. But, at $2,400, not many people were snatching up the bulky, while undeniably cool, typing tool. Now the Russian design firm Art Lebedev is back with a new version, dubbed the Optimus Popularis.

As you could guess from the name, the Popularis carries a much lower price point, though we'd hardly describe the vague "less than $1,000" tag as cheap. The whole design is more svelte than its predecessor. The right-hand number pad and left-hand shortcut keys have been ditched and the overall key size has shrunk. Oddly, even though the size of the keys is smaller, the size of the embedded displays are larger, thanks to thinner frames. The nicest touch, though, is the widget bar that lives between the function keys and number row, and that's used to display everything from system stats to new e-mails. On a blogger's salary, it's hard to justify dropping a grand on a keyboard, but that won't stop us from blindly lusting after it. [From: Optimus Project, via: PopSci]

Tags: accessory, ArtLebedev, keyboard, oled, OptimusMaximus, OptimusPopularis, popularis, top

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