Optimus gets new name, new price, same old delays – Updated with more pics

By Chris Davies on Wednesday, Mar 14th 2007 1 Comment

Worth Reading?

Oh, for crap’s sake! Optimus, you disappoint me. After promising – yes, promising – to have a working OLED keyboard prototype at CeBIT, Optimus are practising their back-peddling and saying that it’s not ready yet. What they have been able to bring along is a new price - up from $1,200 to $1,490 – and news of how exactly they’re going to make those keys replaceable. Apparently rather than the OLED display moving, it’s the transparent key-cap on top of it that somehow slides around; that’s how they’ll be able to sell you replacements for a mere $10 each.

Optimus Maximus

They’ve changed the name, too, and have obviously been reading The Big Book of Distract the Consumer; it’ll no longer be called the 103, but instead the Optimus Maximus. Seems inevitable that such a title will only draw attention to the maximus-pricimus.

Edit: More official photos after the cut… including the return of the left-side key panel!

Click for full-size:

Images from Optimus Project

Delivery is in November/December, but before you start preordering you should know that the OLED displays have an expected lifespan of just five years.

Optimus Maximus the God of Keyboards Unveiled [Engadget]