Art Lebedev Optimus Popularis Keyboard Shows Its Face [New And Improved Optimus Popularis Keyboard From Art Lebedev Gets Pictured, Detailed]

Posted on TFTS by Jeff Baker on Wednesday, 30. June 2010 under: Computers & Computing, Keyboards

Text entry has long been a necessary part of computing due to the lackluster support for audio-to-text entry. Keyboard as we known they today are largely regarded as one of the most effective ways to enter text into a computer beating out touchscreens and audio-to-entry methods in both speed and accuracy hands down (no pun intended). Due to this advantage, it’s no wonder that the devices have continued to improve over the years.

While there has been a decent amount of keyboard innovation over the years, it has stayed fundamentally the same. Sure, manufacturers have added things like backlights, slimmer form factors and additional buttons for specified purposes but the QWERTY (or Dvorak, if you’re into that kind of thing) key layout has remained constant. But honestly, why try to fix something that isn’t broken?

Art Lebedev, if you haven’t heard of them, is an independent company looking to make the keyboard even better than it already it. Back in the day they debuted the Optimus Maximus keyboard which featured a separate display for each and every key. In theory this was a great idea as you could change the entire layout of the keyboard to suit whatever task you may be undertaking. Just imagine, changing the keys from your normal English layout to Photoshop hot keys – the producitivity improvements are obvious. However, due to its high price (still right around $1,500) consumers had an extremely hard time justifying the purchase of a keyboard that cost more than most laptops.

Well, the company is still afloat and looking to break into the keyboard market yet again, this time with the Optimus Popularis Keyboard. Just like the Optimus Maximus, the Optimus Popularis will feature individual displays in each key but this time they will be taking up as much of the key as possible. Additionally, they have updated the design, doing away with traditional square keys changing them instead to a chiclet design with type writer inspiring spacing. Other additions include a widget based display between the numerical and function keys that can display things such as email notifications and weather updates. If you’re turned off by the loss of a numerical keypad, don’t fret as the designers say the Fn key will make up for that.

Best of all, Art Lebedev hopes to price the Optimus Popularis keyboard below $1,000 which is probably still too high for most but at least they are making strides towards a more affordable keyboard.

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