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An ode to Art. Lebedev:
Oh, OLED keyboards, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…
Thy keys are oh-so-shiny, my heart lusts for their luster,
Thy Upravalator makes me feel like the helmsman on the USS Enterprise,
And thy price tags make me feel empty, in both wallet and heart,
For I know I will never get to take thee home.
Ok, so the Art. Lebedev studio has a bunch of cool stuff. The Upravalator continues to make me happy in many ways, such as it’s ability to provide tactile feedback, have 5 points of “touch”, the 12 individual screens displaying many options, pallets, and customizations, not to mention it’s ability to make me looks like the helmsman on the USS Enterprise. Despite that I haven’t seen a price yet, and that the Optimus Mini costs $160 USD for 3 silly, tiny screens, I can’t wait for the Upravalator. After all, it looks to be a great addition to any serious graphics designer or audio/video guy, plus, it just looks freakin’ cool.
However, the Optimus Maximus, the highly-publicized keyboard from Art. Lebedev, is also an interesting foray into the peripheral environment. Announced to cost around $1500 dollars between earlier this year and late last year, it’s definitely the priciest addition for a keyboard I’ve ever seen, and probably for good reason: the keys are not static in nature; they consist of miniature LCD screens powered by organic LEDs (OLEDs). Along with this digitization comes some features such as being able to modify the entire keyboard arrangement, digitally show what shortcuts are accessed by which keys, and provide a little immersion and flair. It will support any language or layout, and will ship with an SDK, as it will be ‘open-source’. While all of this seems wonderful, the $1500 price tag is something to be reckoned with. Also, the interesting observation that not even a prototype has surfaced yet has more than one eyebrow raised, as all graphics so far are merely concepts, including the one below.
Hopefully, we’ll see something tangible about the Optimus here soon, but I’m chiefly interested in the Upravalator; sure, the Optimus will be stellar, especially with all it’s features, if it ever shows up, but, BOY, do I really feel like going to Warp 3.
Photos Courtesy of: Art. Lebedev Studios.
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