The Neon Rush

Taking a look at the Asus Eee Keyboard

Oct 8, 2009 13:39

The other day, I was at a friend's birthday celebration. It was a festive gathering of fellow tech industry folks based here in Taipei. The drinks were flowing and all was merry and fun. Nicole from Netbooknews.com was there and whipped out the new Eee Keyboard from Asus. The device is basically a full computer that's been built into a QWERTY keyboard.

• 1.6GHz Atom processor


• 1GB of DDR2 RAM


• 16GB or 32GB solid-state harddisk


• 802.11n Wi-Fi


• Bluetooth


• Ultrawideband HDMI


• Battery

It also has a built-in touchscreen on the right for navigation and playback.



Asus is positioning this as a home theater device. Its logic is that if you have a bunch of TVs in your home and you want a single device to control them all, then the Eee Keyboard is the solution.  

This would mean, however, that each TV needs a built-in wireless receiver, either an 802.11n dongle or Ultrawideband receiver. The Eee Keyboard stores and streams the video to the screen and is portable enough to go from room to room.

I don't know, though. If I'm the type of user who has three high-definition TVs throughout the house:

1. I wouldn't rely on a 1.6GHz Atom processor to stream my high-definition content because I already have an Xbox, PS3, or HTPC doing the job just fine.


2. I know that a wired network is much faster and more reliable than any other type of setup. If I have three HD TVs, I'm not going to skimp on the network.


3. A single device to control all of my TVs would be nice. 

I think Asus is doing a good job of trying to address one of the above concerns. The build quality of the aluminum keyboard looks and feels great. The price is expected to come in at around US$400-$500. The Eee Keyboard isn't on the market yet, but is slated for launch in the US and Europe some time this month. (No word on availability in Asia yet.)  



Perhaps Asus is trying to carve a niche market for the home theater connoisseur in the "if you build it, they will come" style. But I think most ubergeeks have already planned out their media setup pretty well, and if I'm a regular user, I'd probably rather have a cool new Netbook for that price.  

Either way, the Eee Keyboard is an interesting gadget. Cheers to Nicole at Netbooknews for letting us take a peek. To learn more about the latest news in the Netbook arena you can follow them on Twitter.

Recent Comments

 

Most Discussed

 

Browse Archive