Tho it’s still “Pre-Order” only, the infamous keyboard where every key (113 instead of 103 last March) is a stand-alone display (48×48 Full Color OLED instead of 32×32) showing the function it is currently associated with is ALIVE almost a reality…

“Problem: Have a keyboard with displays in every button produce”

When Art. Lebedev Studio started this project few months years ago, the idea was simply brilliant! So brilliant, many must have thought “Why nobody ever did it sooner?!!“

Well, as usual, having a brilliant idea is one thing but delivering it is another one… And having a keyboard with mini-displays in every single button was the one and only problem.

So instead of focusing on the many mishaps, rumors, misfortune etc. I’d like to congratulate them for actually delivering this very cool and revolutionary keyboard.

Yes, it will be pricey… The Optimus Maximus will be available around $1,564.37 by the end of December. But what a trip!

The Optimus is equally good for any keyboard layouts—Cyrillic, Ancient Greek, Georgian, Arabic, Quenya, Hiragana—and so on to infinity: notes, numerals, special symbols, HTML codes, math functions, images etc.

A configurator software will allow for programming every button to reproduce a sequence of symbols and editing the image separately for each layout.

Make sure to check the Demo, it’s quite impressive! The only thing that bugs me is that the Optimus turned white… I do hope they will offer a Black version for it’s definitely sexier ah!

Every button on the keyboard (or, more precisely, a module with a moving cap, a microchip and a display) is easy to remove in order to clean or replace, so yes, you can manually remove every key and clean or vacuum-clean the body!

How long does a screen live you wonder huh?! Non-stop glow time at nominal brightness declared by the manufacturer is 20,000 hours.

If you work for eight hours every day, including weekends and holidays, the screens will last for about seven years.

After that, the display will not die instantly, but begin to fade gradually (like the sun in billions of years).

Plus the keyboard comes with an ambient light sensor (just like the iPhone) which allows for having the displays’ brightness automatically adjusted up or down depending on whether it’s getting dark or light.

Additionally, you can adjust brightness manually. Automatic or manual control is available through the Optimus Configurator software.

Oh and you will get an one year warranty on it!