Yeah, I'm mostly amazed that it exists at all.

Verrrry interestinhgh.

wait whats this... Gizmodo feeling well.... I have only called you guys out on this for the last YEAR and low and behold you get your hands on it and you like it...

Nice... but no subtraction on the number pad?

$1500 for a keyboard!? HAH.. I wouldn't pay more than $50 for a keyboard.. EVAR..

Does this thing make the high-pitched hum that existed on the original mini-3? Anyone know if they ever fixed that issue on the Mini-3?

Next Up: While wondering the streets of Las Vegas at night, Gizmodo writers discover that the Area 51 is actually real and that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were actually brothers separated at birth.

why is the bard on the spacebar??

Looks great. The only issue I see with it is issue of reflections/glare in a bright room. Maybe it's easier to see in person though. Either way, I wouldn't turn one down if it was offered to me!

Being a geek I love this! But being a touch-typist I can't help but wonder if enticing you to constantly look down from your screen at your sexy keyboard while you type is a good thing? Also for that price it would also need to double as a form of transportation.

$1500 is still way more than I'll ever pay for a keyboard, but it does look really cool.

I do have to ask though... did they tell you why the space bar has a picture of... I believe that's William Shakespeare?

It's just a keyboard!!

@HeartBurnKid: They have a picture of Shakespeare because they can't draw a blank.

I hope this thing comes down below $250... cause I already have images for the 'V' 'T' and 'A' keys ready to go.

Did you talk to him about the Apple patent application?

So.... awesome....
Except for you know the glare
... and the smudges
... aaand the fact that the space-bar only has a tiny screen on it like all the other keys
... and it's HOW expensive?

Sorry, this was a cool concept but they fucked it.

what's awesome about this, that i think a few people have failed to realize is how amazingly productive it can make you across many complicated apps like photoshop, illustrator, final cut pro, premiere, after effects, etc. etc. etc.

instead of taking time to learn all the keyboard shortcuts for changing tools they display right on your keyboard, I don't think I'd spend 1500 bucks on it, but I still think it's a really awesome idea.

@adam12hicks: very clever, the porno alphabet layout, I like.

@Everyone who's saying "$1500! I CAN GET A KEYBOARD FOR $50!!!@!":

This keyboard is Not. Meant. For You. Go buy your $50 keyboard. Have fun. This is not a $50 keyboard and it was never meant to be. It's 2008 where I live and OLEDs are still expensive to manufacture and buy, especially in small quantities.

When Apple releases their OLED keyboard, it won't be $1500 anymore, but it won't be $75 either.

The point is that someone is DOING it. When people see it's real, they will want it, and prices will go down. Then maybe one day you'll be able to pick one up on the clearance rack at Best Buy and you'll be happy with yourself.

@ithcy: No, instead it's a $50 keyboard with pretty light-up keys. :)

There's no denying this is very cool. But at some point, the added expense has to be justified. What, exactly, does this add to the computing experience? Not a whole ton. Definitely not anything worth $1500. When the price does come down out of the stratosphere, it'll be worth considering. Until then, if you want to pay that much to be an early adopter, and have something that no app or game in the world will support because the installed user base at that price point will be, precisely, dick, then go ahead.

And yes, I realize that OLEDs are expensive. That doesn't mean that this application of them has value to match the expense.

And no, the price won't come down. When demand increases (i.e. when people see it's real and want it), prices stay the same or go up. Read a book! Or go on ebay and look for a Wii; there's an object lesson.

Any comments on the Apple patents?

I wish I had the kind of money to casually buy this.

@HeartBurnKid: So what's more justifiable then? I think it would be much easier to justify spending $1500 on a keyboard that is no doubt going to increase your productivity (if you make use of keyboard shortcuts a lot in different apps) than tagging an extra $1500 onto your new TV just to get the NECESSARY 120 Hz refresh rate model.

Sorry, I just don't get spending more than $20 on a device that, when used correctly, you never look at.

@HeartBurnKid: Funny you should tell him to go read a book. You may want to as well. The Wii pricing is reflective of a constrainted supply, not increased demand. If Ninentdo could keep up with demand, the price would stay at MSRP. The reason the price may go down as demand increases is that the manufacturer may enjoy lower costs due to increased volumes.

D.

@micah-micah: Tell you what: Why not get a 12" touchscreen from Newegg for $800 as your secondary monitor for all the tools you need to "easily have access to".

A keyboard that easily gets fingerprints on it and costs $1500.. And is nearly vaporware for 3 years (and counting). GREAT!

it surpasses the hype??? Unheard of!

BTW, did anyone else notice how thick that thing is? It might as well be the reincarnation of Commodore64.

It's cool, sure. It's actually real and available for purchase... that's a miracle really, and after all the hundreds of blog posts on this thing over the years, I'm glad it wasn't all for not.

But I sure as hell wouldn't spend more than a c-note for this, or ANY keyboard.

@HeartBurnKid:

I understand the law of supply and demand, but thanks. I'll show you my Economics coursework if you show me yours.

Increased demand will lead to competitive production, which means that, yes, retail costs will go down with time. Realize that we are talking about a product whose market lifespan is mainly in the future. Demand drives up price when there is an already-existant product with limited availability, and then only so long as availability is limited. Remember a few years ago when [popular retail item X] cost many times more than it does today?

Where's that book you're talking about? Maybe you should just flip through it again... :)

Calling it not vaporware is the same as doing so with Duke Nukem just because you got to play the demo or seen the trailer. I will believe it once the shipping starts.

Now i will maybe think about buy one when the price is just 1/10th of the current price. Vanilla Keyboards ensure me a better Desktop for the time being! ($2 bucks, FTW!).

Taking keys out is fairly easy, and it pops right back into place. What did you do? lemmie guess... you were playing with it and you popped out a key and you panicked. and shoved it back in and calmly walked away.

i knew it was you.

BTW say hi to my Bro at the Seagate booth would ya? tall fat guy with an overgrown goatee. tell him Chris says Hi.

oh his name is Tim

Thanks,

@ithcy: Umm. Hate to tell you this but, this is only for niche market; economies of scale doesn't apply. Sorry bud, but the price will never go down.

@ripfire4:

This will not always be a niche market, "bud". The price of this particular product will probably not go down. That's not my point. The price of future similar products WILL go down from $1500. Bud.

I am sooo gonna get this for only 300 bucks...

in the year 2010 that is ;-)

Since when is this $1500? I'm confused. On their official site they list it for $462.27: [www.artlebedev.com]

I think the first pre-orders were $1500 for the really early adopters but it looks like they've lowered the price since then. They probably used the early adoption money to pay for bulk orders of the OLEDs and other parts in order to cut costs.

Remember kids: Until it ships to a paying customer, it's vaporware.

@theantidote: That's the cost for ONE active button (the space bar). Go through the checkout for one, you get to choose how many buttons you want active. All 113 are $1500. Very cool but far too expensive. $200? Maybe...

We just have to wait for the cheaper knock offs to start rolling out...

A well-designed keyboard could be useful for certain applications. My favorites are the old Atex keyboard for text editing (with dedicated keys for markup, word deletion, etc.) and the old Symbolics Lisp Machine keyboard with multiple well-placed control keys. Both made you much more efficient when you became proficient with the keyboard.

The Art Lebedev keyboard certainly looks pretty, and might have a variety of interesting uses (e.g., displaying symbol characters in symbol fonts), but so far it seems like a solution in search of a problem.

If you're looking at the keys, the keyboard layout isn't well designed or you are not proficient. With the old Atex keyboard, you'd notice that you need to transpose two words and your fingers would magically make it happen by pressing the right keys. You would not think about which keys to press or look at them. They would just happen.

If it cost about $100, I might buy it because I love gadgets. (After all, I own a virtual laser keyboard, frogpad, and a half dozen other specialized input devices.) But I wouldn't buy it for more than that since it doesn't solve any problems.

If you use final cut pro , photoshop, Maya, & many other programs that require almost all the keys on your keyboard to run different functions -it can get very tricky. that is why every body is buying keyboard stickers. but if u but keyboard stickers for photoshop you are screwed for final cut ect...for pros that r going back and forth between hardcore apps this might be worth the price.

i used the KB cover for final cut. It was okay, but if you need to use multiple covers it's a hassle. I'd pay $200 for this. No more.

I don't understand...why do you need a cover for PS? I'm just an amateur (granted) so I have most of the shortcuts I need memorized. If I need to do something more complicated, chances are it doesn't have a shortcut.

What about the Ctrl+Shift+ commands...like De-select?

And configuring this damn thing...wouldn't you have to learn every shortcut over again??

Couple of questions and comments here.

Are the keyboards still being made in-house? Have they found a manufacturer for mass production? And, have they found a distributor or still doing it in-house?

My comment relates to those questions. If they can find a manufacturer that can mass produce these keyboards, and a distributor, then the cost will start to go down. One, bulk purchases in the mass bulk range are cheaper than if they are building them in-house still and buying 100 or so components at a time.

These keyboards right now, well you are paying for the development and probably close to what their cost is for the materials.

@AlCoholic: I would pay $200 for one. bidding $75 is just being rude... :)

@AlCoholic: What's your point?

At least he (theoretically) spent all this time making sure that his product would not suck pants. I probably won't be buying one anytime soon, but if there's ever a contest to win one, I would surely enter.

I'll take one for 300$ :D Maybe 350$

The fact that it was good enough to make Gizmodo forget all its previous criticism of expense and cries of vapourware to praise it and actually deem it worthy of its stratospheric price says quite a lot to me, you know.

It is still an amazing concept, and I am a bit worried for the inventors that worked hard - invested a personal fortune in getting this done....just to get ripped to shreds by Apple filing a patent for it?

I cross my finger for you Art! Your invention is nothing short of breathtaking!