14 DAY TRIAL // At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, ASUS unveiled a series of new products, most of which take advantage of Intel's highly successful netbook platform. Aside from some new ultraportable computer systems, the Taiwanese company made good use of the netbook platform, which has been integrated in a device that left those attending this year's CES pretty impressed. ASUS showcased an Eee Keyboard, which was designed to take advantage of the Intel Atom platform, offering users a new and highly-capable input device.
Said keyboard isn't expected to become available until sometime in the third quarter of 2009, but the technical specifications are already present. The Eee keyboard is powered by a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor and packs 1GB of DDR2 memory. It can provide support for either a 16GB or a 32GB SSD storage solution and comes with a Windows XP Home Edition operating system. Even more, the peripheral brings wireless 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity options, and, spec by spec, it appears to be competing with those small-sized portable computer systems, also known as netbooks.
In addition to the impressive technical specification sheet, the Eee keyboard is featured with a built-in 5-inch toucscreen display and a number of connectivity options that you are likely to take advantage of. There are two USB 2.0 ports and headphone and mic ports. However, what could strike you as really impressive are the built-in VGA and HDMI ports, which you can use to connect the device to a display.
Given all these specs, you would expect the Eee keyboard to provide a rather bulky and unattractive design; however, that is not the case here. ASUS featured its Atom-powered keyboard with some flat Mac-like keys and with an overall design that resembles that of some highly-featured gaming peripherals currently available on the market.
With all that inside, the weight of the keyboard has been taken to 2 lbs, but that could be considered a rather decent compromise, given the specifications on this thing. Unfortunately, ASUS has yet to detail on the keyboard's pricing, but you have until Q3 this year to put some cash aside.
