I am still convinced that this is vaporware.

$462 to have an LED keyboard with LED only in the spacebar key?

What a joke. What a total ripoff. I wish they would go out of business but I know people with too much money to spend will buy.

OMG who would pay $462 for a keyboard with one LED key?

One of my kids would spill pop or milk in the keyboard and loose $1500 to an accident.

I WOULDN'T PAY $1500 FOR A NEW COMPUTER LET ALONE A KEYBOARD! COME ON!

Erm. Don't get me wrong here, I'm a BIG fan of this keyboard. A colleague bought one about 5 months ago and both he and I love using it. BUT it just seems like a rip off selling a striped down version of this keyboard, especially if you pay almost half for the low end model that has only ONE lcd key. Seems to me the price should reflect on the amount of lcd keys. At 462 coins I would at least expect, from the lowest end model, lcd function keys, esc key, windows key and spacebar, at the very least.

Why would anybody pay $462 for a keyboard with an LED space bar? Those are all rip-offs IMO. Its pretty much go for the top of the line (which is still overpriced) or nothing.

subjective, but I think the "design" (looks) of the keyboard looks like a generic one. For that price tag, they should at least make it look stylish. If they have the looks of the new iMac keyboard, at least the price tag would be my only concern.

To me this is a piece of ugly expensive art. (not to mention i dont look at the keyboard when I type).

Not that I'd buy one anyway, but I suppose if the whole width of the space bar was active, that would be like 6-7 normal keys worth of LCD area.(?) Maybe 4 sq. in. for $462. Best of all, it's that _rarely_ used space key. Doesn't everybody wish they could remap that to be something else.

ROFL what a joke a keyboard with one lit key for almost 5 bills? What is this company smoking? Give me a flashlight and a standard keyboard and I’m good. Someone needs to come out with a compete ting keyboard that uses light conductive plastic and only a few led’s and sell it for 100 or less and put that lame company out of business.

this keyboard actually has LCD keys. each key can be progrmed to look like what you waht dynamically. for example, when you press the shift key the letters change from lower case to higher case on the keyboard. Also when you play a game you can set the W,A,S,D keys to look like the arrow keys and G to look like a granade for example.. apparently this is done very easilly. just thought it might me worth mentioning as there is no refference to this in the article.

I just wish there was a keyboard that lit up in the dark that you could ACTUALLY read the keys on. I have tried a few and the keys just are not legible in the dark. I learned very bad typing habits and unfortunately sorta type/look at keys at same time. Plus I would need to see the function keys and other odds and ends while gaming at night.

Make the keys light up and be very legible at night. That's what I want.

This is kind of outrageous, one led key on a keyboard for $462...forget Art Lebedev, bunch of Russian pricks. Way to cater to the rich you assholes. I clearly remember Art Lebedev saying they would have a moderately priced one with about half the functionality or even aesthetics within the $250-$500 range. Hopefully another company will bring something like this to the market, and shut Art Lebedev out.

Each 'lit' key is a small OLED display. 48x48 pixels. Not just a single LED to light it up. The picture on each 'lit' key can be changed from what I understand. This would be a good idea if you had a kiosk in an international airport where users could configure the keyboard for their language. Or perhaps change the keys to represent various game functions.

Either way, still not worth the price.

TW34K3D

[tw34k3d is right. For some reason, the "o" was omitted in this article. Sorry for the confusion. -ed]

are the ones who dont know how to type.

haha, this article made me laugh, anyone who spends 462$ on a keyboard, yet alone, 1500 is a total moron who deserves to get beat to death with their own keyboard. here are my suggestions, either turn on the damn light in your room, if you cant see the keys. or...learn to type. its not hard, to press "shift" and a letter to know that you're typing in CAPS. and for the "gamers" out there, even 6 year olds who plays games know that W,A,S,D corresponds to the directions of the arrows. what a rip, i rather save my money to buy a highend DX 10.1 card, and spend 15 bucks on a logitech keyboard that lasts for years. good game.

the keyboard with only one oled display button would suck since it costs $500, but i dont think its all that bad since you can purchase an oled key for $15US and they will work in place of a key that did not have an oled display before. i personally wouldnt mind buying the keyboard and then buying a few extra buttons on top of that, i wouldnt really need to oled keys i would think like 3-5 would do fine

Yeah, I have a Saitek and while I like how it feels, it's not legible from a normal typing position, only directly above. >_>

Deck keyboard's legend is a much better design. I used one at a LAN once and it was very clear.

But how much time does anyone spend looking at their keyboards anyway?

The Logitech gaming keyboards are very readable even in the darkest of rooms. I have the G15 and I'm actually typing on it right now in the pitch blackness of my dorm with the blue LED glow lighting it up for me.

only 3-4 posters know what the fuck they are talking about here.

its not "LED BACKLIT KEYS" for gods sake.

Its OLED. google it.

"An organic light-emitting diode (OLED), also Light Emitting Polymer (LEP) and Organic Electro-Luminescence (OEL), is any light-emitting diode (LED) whose emissive electroluminescent layer is comprised of a film of organic compounds. The layer usually contains a polymer substance that allows suitable organic compounds to be deposited. They are deposited in rows and columns onto a flat carrier by a simple "printing" process. The resulting matrix of pixels can emit light of different colors."

Its a fucking screen you numbskulls. Like the monitor in front of you, it can show images of whatever. Lets say I would rebind a key for my games like "t" to being a speach bubble to signify my talk key. Rebind space to a picture of a man jumping. Now im not sure how advanced it is, but im sure in future revisions you could probably have animated pictures and gifs.

Thats the ability of oled. Not some facncy backlight, in fact oled doesnt even need backlighting according to wikipedia. Its more like an LCD but better due to the lack of backlighting needed to view the button.

Noobiegamer - proves his name by posting a terribly uninformed post because he doesnt understand what the keyboard does.

Doesn't Matter - Didnt bother looking it up either, hell he is happy to pretend he knows the company too! If he did he would have looked at their site which clearly describes.. in french what it does.

John doe - Never heard of the G series of keyboard by logitech, neither has he even heard of the millions of cheap $20 keyboards which have backlit keys. Ohwell.

Cognitive - Much like the posters above him are happy to shit all over something just cause others have, but he couldnt be bothered to even know what he is shitting on.

Dude - Starts the entire dumbass postings, he misreads a label, trashes it and walks off. I bet if he sees one in real life, he would be WOAH THAT IS SO FUCKING COOL its like a hundred monitors at my finger tips.

/sigh

All models will ship Feb 2008, non are available for the general public. There was a big uproar that they started offering discounting ones, before they even shipped the first set to people who preordered the $1500 monsters.
Now here is the part of the clue me in bit, how are you and your mate using a keyboard that has not mass shipped yet?

you don't only get a normal keyboard with one oled key for 500 bucks.
those keyboards are upgradable, which means you can buy single keys at any time and plug them into your keyboard.
so you pay 500 bucks for the electronics to get the data and power to 114 possible displays.
and each of the displays is another approx. 8 bucks.

and yes, they have shipped some (less than 1k) if you believe their homepage.

btw: a link to their page in the article would have been nice. ;-)

Tom's covers this story but I can't figure out what's imporotant here. Please include in the next story who is going to buy this and why it's going to change the world. I'm too lazy to look it up. Tom's can do it for all us lazy mentally deficient folks how read this website This story just gets annoying.

You can light up your key board with 100 little bare naked ladies and they can wiggle under your fingers as you type.

Why didn't I figure this out a couple years ago when this pointless story started.

I wonder what replacement keys cost when they break? Do you send the keyboard back to Siberia?

No doubt this thing is cool, but it's what you get for the $ that we are all dumbfounded by. Sure, I'd pay that much it is was 'like having 100 monitors at my fingertips' but it's not. It's like having 100 logos at my fingertips. Whats more is that it dosnt add any further functionality than what can be programed into a cheap $10 keyboard because windows will let you set up shortcut commands to do just about anything. The only thing it adds is to make it look pretty, but most the things we do have things looking pretty on the monitor, not the keyboard.

Skythra,

An OLED is simply a LED whose junction is made from organic materials. Nothing more, nothing less. It bares no functional resemblance to LCDs other than the fact that both can be arranged in to make graphical displays.

LCDs work like a valve controlling the amount of light that passes through using polarization. They require a backlight since they do not generate light.

LEDs and OLEDs are electroluminescent which means they create their own light when a current is flowing through them.

I think it is cool but it is still way to costly for what one gets. How often does one look at the keys when typing? It costs more than some entry level computers and some laptops.

Touch typest don't look at the keyboard, so is this an expesive toy?

The problem with these keyboards is the organic materials in the OLEDS attract insects like fly's etc. They lay their eggs in the organic compounds and you end up with maggot infestation. Lebedev offer a handy insecticide spray but this will set you back another $150. For a spray!!!If the maggot offspring would kindly arrange themselves into valid key configurations it might not be so bad though.

you sir, are smart. its true that i wouldnt buy one, but as a possible first generation oled keyboard its not hard to think 3generations away that there would be fully customizeable oled displays at my fingertips that change dramatically to follow what programs im using, the games and hell even within the game a shift in keyboard setup with predefined keysets.

much like i can change my 15 g keys on my logitech to 3 profiles, i want to be able to change my whole keyboard to do cool shit.

Like you said, you would be an idiot if you arent stupidly rich or using it to impress in a business situation or something somehow.

But on the otherhand my largest point would be totaly that people just dont understand that OLED =/= LED. Those loudmouthed opinionated jerks have just bashed the crap out of it without any understanding, but the potential of this keyboard is so very cool.

LCD is a liquid crystal.

The "O" in the OLED is the organic compound that allows you to create a matrix out of the LED's that can then create colour in a resolution. For example, much like the lcd you are looking at in front of you.

Your unnoticed LCD screens can also be found in simple applications like childrens 10dollar hand held games, and watches and clocks.

How is OLED not being used for similar applications to LCD then?

The design and functionality is great but the price is to high. For this price you can buy 1 or 2 laptops. ;o)

.....and the lifetime of the OLED display is not the best..

Scuba Steve was just saying that OLED doesn't automatically mean the screens have keys on them. Uh, KEYS have SCREENS on them. (Although, that may justify the absurd price for a keyboard.) An OLED device can be used to backlight (anything) just as an LED can. I don't know the variety of OLED colors available outside of red, blue and green.

That being said, maybe the keys DO have screen on them. I can't tell from the picture, and the article doesn't help. I tried to go the Art Lebedev website, but it's prohibited at work. Post if you confirm the key screens.

Nothing will change the fact that this device, in any model, is a colossal waste of money. $462 for a customizable picture on your space bar? LOL.

First, I'm rather surprised about the general lack of understanding here of OLEDs, especially considering the publicity they rightfully get.

In almost all contexts, OLED refers to a technology that is expected to replace LCD display technology in much the same way that it replaced CRT technology. OLED displays are very thin, and in many cases can be made flexible (think a screen that you can roll up and stuff in your pocket). Because of the LE part of OLED, they require no backlighting, as they *are* the "backlight". OLEDS currently are only practical in very small form factors and small screen sizes, but as the technology matures, it can be expected to turn up most anywhere. There are cell phones and mp3 players on the market now that use OLED displays as opposed to LCDs.

OLEDs are not to be confused with LED-backlit LCDs. LED-backlit LCDs will use LEDs to replace the cold cathode florescent backlights in current LCDs. This has several advantages, including power consumption, a more even backlight, and the ability to display true black. These displays on the market now as high-end options, such as in the Dell XPS and (so it is rumored) in the next MacBook refresh.

This keyboard idea has been kicking around for years. The concept is to make every single key a tiny display that can be reprogrammed. Want shortcut key that launches Firefox? Any cheap-o programmable keyboard will let you do this, but this one will let you set that key's image to the Firefox logo, for example. See the picture in the article: note the ten shortcut buttons on the far left end (in fact, the upper right one is such a firefox button. ;-) ).

When you shell out $500 for this keyboard, you don't get a spacebar that can do tricks. You get the whole package, software, keyboard with connections for every key, but without the "screens". The keyboard can support the whole hundred-some more OLED keys, but if you'd only use a few, you can buy the base model and then just buy what keys you want.

This is not a mass market product. It never was intended to be; those come later, through technological improvements and economies of scale. That's why it's interesting: eventually it may come down the pipe to us.

Most of you guys only write in one language. Need to write in Japanese today? cool, Hit the F1 key and you have a Japanese keyboard. Need to write the next bit in Arabic? Cool, just hit F2. Lets say you need to write a post for Toms Hardware in English, Just hit F3.

Not everyone needs this. For those who do, it is worth 10 times the cost.

Me and my buddies have been waiting for this keyboard for at least a year or two. The things you could do with this keyboard, wow.
If you go to their site they have a demo of the keyboard: http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/demo/

But I agree that the price is retarded, but if I had the cash I would for sure get one!

Its one OLED- O L E D. all the other keys are standard led w/o color.

I'd love to see Logitech's next keyboard have OLED, or even simple B&W LCD keys in place of the "G" keys like in the G15 keyboards. I think this would take gaming to a whole new level.

If this keyboard had at least 12 "video keys" and were price at under $200, they'd be an instant hit. Don't you think?