Asus Reveals the Eee Keyboard

El Lobo writes "Asus' success with its Eee line of netbooks might have come as a surprise, but the company is now determined to expand the Eee brand into every possible niche and form factor. Case in point: the insanely cool Eee Keyboard, which will surely bring a smile on the faces of those who remember the glory days of the home computer. Described as a fully functional PC with inset Qwerty key arrangement, the keyboard has a 5in touch screen that displays a suite of bespoke media controls or a Windows desktop."

cool

[grumpyman]

This is comparable to a mini pc tucked under the TV with a wireless keyboard and/or a harmony control. The battery life and software UI on the touchpad will be critical to the success of this product.

Not innovative; but slick enough, and really fun..

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Kind of like the EEE itself, actually. You've been able to get computers built into keyboards from specialist suppliers for ages now(not to mention the pantheon of fondly-remembered early systems in the form factor) but they aren't inexpensive and tend toward slightly dull, legacy heavy designs, which is appropriate given the usual customers for such things; but not really exciting.

This little guy, if it ever makes it to market, should be great fun to play around with(particularly if the secondary screen widget is reasonably open to hackers and third party devs). Good looking, probably fairly cheap, no doubt fairly basic specs; but enough for many purposes. I like it.

Re:Not innovative; but slick enough, and really fu

[Anonymous Coward]

It'll also be the world's greatest remote.

Re:Fond memories

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah FecalTrollMatter [slashdot.org] I pine for thee...

Appropriate use of technology?

[Locke2005]

Let me see if I got this straight: this box has no DVD drive or large hard drive, so the "killer" app for this toy is to stream video over wireless to the keyboard, decode it, then stream it again to another box connected to your television??? I'm no system engineer, but wouldn't it make a lot more sense to put all the brains in the box connected to the television (and the power outlet), and just use a cheap remote control (with much better battery life) to control it?

Or maybe you could use it to play games on... in which case wouldn't you be better served by any of the current game consoles equipped with a wireless controller? One more thing... if you've got a built-in wireless HDMI for streaming video to a largescreen TV... what the fsck do you need a crappy 5" LCD screen for??? Sure, this is a cute toy, but what does it enable the average user to actually do better than what they are using now?

Re:Not innovative; but slick enough, and really fu

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'm guessing that IR is a no(though they really should consider it); but with the row of USB ports on the back of the case, right were they would point at the TV while in use, a little low profile IR plug would be just the thing.

Bam! Power Supply

[KalvinB]

problem solved.

Seriously unless you plan on using this thing on the go there's no reason to rely on a battery. And it's not much of a system for on the go computing.

The only reason I don't like laptops is because if the screen goes out you're screwed. My wife's laptop is perfectly functional minus the screen. Fortunatly it has a TV out so it's used to watch Netflix on the TV. This keyboard PC is something that for the right price may be worth getting to replace the old and busted laptop to serve that purpose and be useful for other things as well.

I don't really want to pay $99 for a dedicated Netflix box but if it could be used as a regular PC as well then that's more reasonable.

The Nintendo DS has two screens

[tepples]

but then why have the tiny additional screen and battery?

The additional screen could have similar uses as the GBA screens in some GameCube games (e.g. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures) or the touch screen on a DS. The battery is just a built-in UPS.

Re:Bam! Power Supply

[gbjbaanb]

I think you're being a tad harsh there.

A device that requires a power outlet near the couch is pretty useful. If you can disconnect it to go wander, that's fine too. I know lots of people who use their laptop whilst its plugged in. The 'mobile' factor is that you can take it where you want, not that it can be run without a plug.

His laptop might well be being used as a netflix box, its quiet and cheap after all, if you had a half-bust laptop, it'd be perfect for such a task.

Re:Fond memories

[Hatta]

If you boot with the TV connected and nothing else, it should just work. If you want both at once, you have to set it up just like a dual head configuration. When I did this, that required some involved edits to the xorg.conf. But apparently now you can just do it with nvidia-settings.

It's well worth doing. Movies are an ideal application, and emulators are great too.