14 DAY TRIAL // Generally, hardware makers and PC suppliers will look at the current marketing trends in order to determine what sort of product would best be brought out next. Some companies, however, particularly those large enough to afford experiments, sometimes abandon trends in order to put together a truly unusual device. This is exactly what ASUS did with the EeeKeyboard PC.
The EeeKeyboard PC, essentially, is a keyboard with the full range of PC capabilities built into it. The concept was initially demonstrated about 16 months ago. Actual development, however, did not exactly go smoothly. In fact, the EeeKeyboard was put off several times until it was finally made official not too long ago. Now, it seems that shipments have finally begun to be carried out, at least in the US.
The unusual PC is housed inside an aluminum casing with a UV-coated underside, measures 145 (L) x 425 (H) x 24.4 (H) mm and weighs 1.1 kg. Powered by an Intel Atom CPU, which runs at 1.6GHz, the system boasts GMA 950 integrated graphics, 1GB of RAM, an SSD with 16GB of storage space and, most importantly, a 5-inch capacitive multi-touch screen with a maximum resolution of 800 x 600. This small display is used for file browsing and certain basic web tasks, whereas the built-in HDMI and D-Sub can let the EeeKeyboard interface with a regular monitor.
It should be noted that the PC-keyboard hybrid also features three USB ports, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth 2.1 and, most importantly, Ultra-Wideband (UWB). This last element lets the product wirelessly stream 720p videos and non-video files up to a range of five meters and ten meters, respectively. Finally, Actual video playback is made possible by the Broadcom Crystal HD chip.
The ASUS EeeKeyboard is pre-loaded with Windows XP and carries a price tag of $599. Consumers can acquire it via Amazon.