On the upside, the keypad by itself, without its cheap attached keyboard, will only run you $200. Compare that to Optimus' baby, which goes for a rent-replacing sum of $650. It's plug-and-play with Windows, and the software is easy to use and pretty full-featured. It's more than just nine shortcut keys, including context-specific shortcuts and "'nested' command trees."

Unfortunately, those little 64x64 monochrome keys look exactly as awful as you'd expect, and the keys themselves are apparently pretty mushy and unappealing. The worst crime? It's Windows-only for now, though United Keys does promise that Mac and Linux support will roll out soon. My opinion? If you really want an Optimus Aux, go buy one. And if you can't afford one, maybe this isn't the gadget to cheap out on. [Engadget]

1. It's not meant for a lot of typing. There's no way you're buying this $1500 keyboard for typing. If you wanted the best typing experience, there's plenty of boards from Microsoft or Logitech or Apple that are better suited (and protect your wrists better). No, you want this because of the shortcuts it'll let you see and the customization it'll let you perform. The individual keys are loud and clacky, which is not great for people who prefer scissor switch or membrane type keyboards. There is a decent amount of feedback when you press a key, however, and it springs back nicely. It's just not a keyboard you'd pick out to type 100+ WPM with.

No, if you do a lot of typing, you want to have two keyboards. One for typing, and the Optimus off to the side for button presses and shortcuts and gaming and the stuff that the Maximus was made for.

2. It works. Each key has a display on it, each display is bright like you'd expect, and each display is customizable. Not only can you pick what's displayed on each key (the whole point of this thing), you can customize what each key does when you press it. As of now, you can execute an AppleScript, Shell Command, trigger Expose, and open a file.

3. You can make the keys display ANYTHING. As long as you have an image, you can customize the display to show anything you want. Static images are fine, but if you wanted to, the keyboard can even support GIFs or MOVs. Play back a movie on your keyboard!

4. It's heavy and big and wide. This is not a small keyboard. This is probably the heaviest, biggest, and sturdiest keyboard we have ever used. If you heard an intruder in your house and you wanted to decide between a bat and the Maximus, it'd be a tough decision. Then again, unless that was a signed commemorative bat, you should probably leave your $1500 keyboard be.

5. It's not wireless. Sorry folks, this thing is wired. Not only is it wired to your computer, there's an AC adapter wire as well. Double wired, you might say.

6. The OLED display doesn't fill up the entire key. Those early renders of the Optimus keyboard aren't accurate. There's a small display embedded in every key, but they're all the same size. It takes up a good 85% of a normal key, but when you get to Shift, Enter, or Space, it's noticeably smaller. Not a huge deal, but if you were hoping to get a huge stat readout of your computer on the Space key, you're out of luck.

7. It comes in four models. Because the keys are interchangeable, you can actually buy them one at a time, or only have some of the keys be OLED display enabled. There's four versions now, one with only the space bar active ($462), one with the 10 side function keys active ($599), one with the 47 regular QWERTY keys active ($999), and one with all 113 keys active ($1564). It's up to you which one you like, but you should at the very least get the 10 active key set.

8. It's not plug and play. When you plug in the Maximus, all you get is a standard keyboard. To get fancy actions, images, or animations going, you're going to have to program them in yourself. Not a huge deal for the hardcore users, but be aware that you'll have to spend a few hours getting used to the system, setting things up, and digging up images to go with whatever actions you want to perform.

9. It's heavily customizable—or at least it will be. Despite the previous target date of April for the final version of the software, it's only at version 0.591 now. There are instances of announced features on their Optimus Blog that haven't made it into the beta versions yet. This means a lot of features—like being able to simulate any series of keys when you hit a button—are still missing. Not to mention that the software currently has a memory leak and balloons up if left alone for more than a day. Quitting and restarting fixes it.

10. You probably shouldn't buy it yet. Even though Art Lebedev is currently taking orders for the keyboard, you should wait until the final release of the software is out. At the very least, wait for them to reach 1.0 and add in all the basic functionality they've been promising. This shouldn't take more than a few months. After that, if you're worried about how expensive the Maximus is, you can wait for the price to drop. Chances are that it won't drop too dramatically, but $1564 is a high price to pay for a normal user.

However, if you're in production or art and really need this for your work, you can go ahead and grab it now. $1500 is easily expensable, and if it helps your productivity by even a small percent, it's totally worth it. [Optimus]

Note: When the software version hits 1.0, we'll do another software oriented look at this keyboard.

The units we got to play with were both fully working—one of which was hooked up to a Mac and the other was running in demo mode. Here's what we think:

• Each key's display is very bright and very crisp.
• The keys aren't too clacky and aren't too soft. A good and happy medium between the old ass IBM clackers and the scissor-style laptop keys.
• Unless you wash your hands regularly (which apparently trade-show attendees do not) the keyboard gets greasy. Very greasy. I need some anti-herpes wipe.
• The shift and caps lock keys were working, and they change the entire layout to CAPS (just as you'd expect). We've got video of this later, but it's very crisp and makes it extremely easy to tell whether or not YOU"VE GOT THE SHIFT KEY HELD DOWN.
• It's extremely customizable. We didn't get to see it here, but you can use the utility to change the background, foreground, and make the whole keyboard rainbow-colored if you so wish.
• It's super responsive hitting the keys as well—absolutely no difference between this and a regular keyboard.
• It feels very solidly made, more so than many other keyboards.
• Taking keys out is fairly easy, and it pops right back into place.

Is it worth $1500? We weren't sure before, but after getting hands-on time with it we're definitely leaning toward a maybe. And if they can lower the price by 50%, then it's a yes. It's one of those things that we'll save up money for and buy after a drunken night out.

We also got to meet Art Lebedev, the guy responsible for the Optimus and many other designs, and we can totally tell that he's on the level and a great guy to boot. In case any of you still thought the Optimus Maximus was vaporware, it's not.

I can imagine that artists, musicians and video editors would like something like this... however, there are solid LCD tablet displays and Tablet PCs on the market already. Experience shows that, for the time being, it's a limited market. Further limiting it to a keyboard replacement could be economically impractical at best, never mind how practical this could be. The issue of the price is the other key here: by the time a touch surface keyboard could be a commercial reality coming from China via Moscow, touch computing from Apple and Microsoft would be so ubiquitous that it won't make sense anymore. [Art.Lebedev]

The ship date used to be December all the way back in May, so either Impress is late with the postponement part of their story, or they're a bit off. Either way, if you've preordered the keyboard, Art.Lebedev will actually ship you a keyboard in December, but you won't be able to use the firmware because that won't be ready until February. [Impress]

Update: Optimus themselves have updated the situation, saying that standard shipments are still on track for February, but if you want a unit they will deliver it soon (but with only PC software, Mac software won't be ready until late January). Nothing's really changed, but they did explain that the slowness in development was caused by a Philips coprocessor that was so new that they had to work with draft documentation.

[Fairlight via Crave]

In other news, their updated development schedule has the plastic tooling done by July 10, OLED tooling done by July 16 (they have a new manufacturer), and a fully functional prototype done by early August. After all this is done, they have to go through the certification process by the FCC, but after that, you're free to plop down a grand and a half for this. Oh, and there's only going to be 200 units done by the end of November, another 200 by the end of December, and 400 by the end of January '08. Really crankin' them out, eh boys? – Jason Chen

Optimus Maximus Development Schedule [Optimus Bog]

Optimus Key Modules [Livejournal]

As you can see, the configurator lets you easily swapout languages, functions, and plugins for each key. We were going to call this vaporware again, but we can't stay mad at you, Optimus. You had us at qwertyuiop[]\.

– Jason Chen

Optimus-103 Configurator [Optimus Blog]

It means you they're now free to release multiple versions of the keyboard. One with only the F-keys being displays, one with only the letter keys being displays, or one (like the original) with all keys being displays. This cuts down cost for people who don't need every single key to be changeable, and actually allows users to buy keys individually and upgrade to a full-blown Optimus keyboard over a period of time.

As long as this means we'll be able to get the Optimus keyboard within the year and for a decent price, we're sold. – Jason Chen

103 Swappable Keys [Optimus Blog via Slashgear]

Now instead of selling the Mini 3 separately as a control scheme (which they've been doing), Epiphan's integrating it into their own unit for both display and control. Although we probably wouldn't buy the Mini 3 solo, having it integrated into keyboard would be totally tubular. – Jason Chen

OM3 Usage [Optimus Blog via Slashgear]

Optimus Mini [internal]
Optimus 3-Key OLED Keyboard [thinkgeek]

The screens are 20 by 20mm each, and have a resolution of 96 by 96 pixels. Very Decent, chappies. Only a 3fps refresh on those keys, so no video. Sorry. Keys are 30 by 30mm, each. – Brian Lam

Optimus 3-Key OLED Keyboard [thinkgeek]

Is it really true? Could the Optimus Mini Three really be shipping? Art Lebedev says it is, and if you're not in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Latvia, and Lithuania, you should be getting your pre-order fulfillment by August 15th. Yes, that's August 15th, 2006. For the listed countries, you'll have to wait until September 1st.

If you didn't get in on the pre-orders, you have until August 1st to put in your order for $126. Come August, the price will jump to $160. The first reader to receive theirs and send in unboxing pictures gets a pat on the back. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Art Lebedev via Extreme Tech]

"I actually paid for the $100 prepay before April 1st when it became $120. Now the ship date has gone from June 1st, to August 15th and it looks like the price went up from $120 to now $160. However, those of us "smart" enough to get in on the ground floor won't have to pay a dime more (of course not, they can't refund the money; they've spent it). Here's to being optimistic, but I'm pulling out. It's vaporware in my book. Oh yeah, 5% extra off of any additional purchases. Wow."

Product Page Thanks, Jeff!