Eee keyboard anybody?

 

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By Stuart Turton in Las Vegas

Posted on 9 Jan 2009 at 08:48

Asus has stuffed an Eee PC into a keyboard, as the wildly successful brand branches out even further from its netbook roots.

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The Eee keyboard follows the familiar netbook specification, and features an Atom processor, 1GB RAM and an unspecified solid state drive.

Despite the specification, the Eee keyboard does have a couple of tricks up its sleeve, beyond the unusual form factor. Built into the keyboard is a wireless HDMI unit, which means that once you plug in a small wireless receiver at the back of your television or monitor, you can output to the display without plugging in any cables.

The other neat feature of the Eee keyboard is the 5in touchscreen display that sits to the right of the keys. The touchscreen is capable of displaying the full Windows XP desktop that ships with the unit, or a simple set of media hotkeys.

While the Eee keyboard will undoubtedly have those with fond memories of owning an Amiga slavering at the mouth, there are drawbacks. In order to forgo space there's no optical drive, though Asus plans to release Eee keyboard peripherals to deal with this.

The company is also struggling to overcome a poor battery life, which at the moment stands at around an hour. However, the keyboard is expected to ship in September, at which time battery life should be up to three hours, according to Asus.