ASUS Eee Keyboard PC Coming Soon

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Normally I am not a fan of pre-built HTPCs but ASUS’ Eee Keyboard PC looks awesome. Keep your fingers crossed that these things work well as HTPCs, if they do they will sell like hotcakes. The article says the Eee Keyboard PC should ship between May and June.

The keyboard is packing a 5-inch built-in display, a 1.6 GHz Atom processor, 1 GB of RAM, 16/32 GB SSD, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. As far as ports, it's got wireless HDMI, 2 USB 2.0, VGA, HDMI, and audio in/out.
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It's cool looking, I'll give it that. For $400-$600 I'd probably stick with the traditional HTPC that has real PC hardware in it, and use a wireless keyboard and mouse.

I'd certainly hate to spill a drink or drop this keyboard.
 
I'd never take hand written notes in class again... sounds nice to me
 
My Amiga 1200 did that 17 years ago.. minus the screen, though. I used the combined keyboard/computer to surf the net, email, play games etc. Pretty much what I use my main PC for now ;)
 
I'm trying to see how this would work as an HTPC. The drive's much too small to be a media server and it would be awkward lugging a USB drive with the keyboard unless you use wireless USB.

Wireless HDMI would be a perfect hookup solution though.
 
looks strikingly similar to a macbook keyboard + iphone thrown in on the side....well..at least the version with the black keys does.
 
Haha, I have a lap top but bringing it to school gets to be a pain! That would be nice if I just needed a little light portable thing to type on, which would be a nice option to have.
 
Hopefully that 1.6 GHz Atom is the 330, dual core with hyper-threading. That would be at least be a more reasonable processor -- particularly if you want to do any transcoding if you really want this for a HTPC.
 
Now this is a neat product, simple, to the point, just a damned neat product. That price, however... hmmm... if it was around $300-500 somewhere I'd consider it, but for $600? I'd buy a new Mac mini before this... geez. And I can't stand Macs... ;)
 
Seems pointless to me. An HTPC must be connected to your TV to display images, so we are going to have thick HDMI, or VGA cables going out to our TVs from our couches... Awesome.
 
if I had the cash I would because it would cause me to make a media server for my eeePC, that, the main PC and the PS3.
 
Azhar said:
I'm trying to see how this would work as an HTPC. The drive's much too small to be a media server and it would be awkward lugging a USB drive with the keyboard unless you use wireless USB.

Wireless HDMI would be a perfect hookup solution though.
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I think it is meant more as a media client device than a media server. A wireless nas can be had for $100-200 these days. That would kill portability outside of your house, but would allow you to have the needed storage. Integrating a wireless USB hub into the it's design to hook external drives to would work great too.
 
vicaphit said:
Seems pointless to me. An HTPC must be connected to your TV to display images, so we are going to have thick HDMI, or VGA cables going out to our TVs from our couches... Awesome.
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Try reading the article... or even just the quote that Steve posted. :rolleyes:
 
vicaphit said:
Seems pointless to me. An HTPC must be connected to your TV to display images, so we are going to have thick HDMI, or VGA cables going out to our TVs from our couches... Awesome.
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/facepalm

I'd need to see one up close to see if it's going to be worth the pricepoint, but it's probably one of the most innovative things I've seen in a while. My concerns are broken keys/hardware failures/etc. I'm sure just like every other item you just have to get it replaced but there's alot of things that can fail in these 'all-in-one' type items that make me nervous to purchase them.
 
What a pointless device. A traditional HTPC with a wireless keyboard makes much more sense. While this is cool from a form factor standpoint, it is pretty dumb from a practicality standpoint. Any damage to the device will require a replacement as opposed to just replacing the the keyboard you just spilled your soda on or dropped on the floor.
 
Kristofff said:
What a pointless device. A traditional HTPC with a wireless keyboard makes much more sense. While this is cool from a form factor standpoint, it is pretty dumb from a practicality standpoint. Any damage to the device will require a replacement as opposed to just replacing the the keyboard you just spilled your soda on or dropped on the floor.
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True, a wireless keyboard with a remote, touch screen, and wireless USB hub built in would prolly much better serve most HTPC users.
 
Kristofff said:
What a pointless device. A traditional HTPC with a wireless keyboard makes much more sense. While this is cool from a form factor standpoint, it is pretty dumb from a practicality standpoint. Any damage to the device will require a replacement as opposed to just replacing the the keyboard you just spilled your soda on or dropped on the floor.
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Not to forget that the device costs about the same as a laptop, minus the wireless HDMI which I'm sure someone must be selling something like that for TVs.

What really gets me about this device is that is has only 16/32 GB SSD. I'd honestly would rather have 320 GB of space to store videos then to have a super silent SSD.
 
This would be great for the 2nd tv in the house.

All my media is on a WHS box. Small HDD is fine.
 
I couldn't find anything in the article (or ariticles linked from the article) about OS choices... but I do see the "Windows(tm)" key on the bottom row, so I'm betting MS Windows XP (tm) is among the choices... if not the only choice.

Bleh.

Hoping for a flavor of GNU/Linux, myself.
 
Yeah, just give me a wireless keyboard with touchscreen built in, that would be an awesome HTPC keyboard. Anyone know where I can get one?
 
I wonder how much that thing ways. And does it get hot on the lap while you watch tv? Wireless hdmi is nice and all, but what about the fucking power cord, which is probably going to have to go to the same outlet the tv is plugged into, unless you are lucky and have power cords behind your couch. I don't know, maybe it has a laptop battery? In that case, why not just sell us a laptop :O
cool idea, but it won't work. Quote me on that one, let's see what happens when it comes out.
 
Does it feature a chipset with IGP capable of 1080 P and have an dvd/blueray through USB or alike option ?

Im maybe in then :D
 
Keyboard PC's have been around for quite a while, so this isn't revolutionary or anything as a whole. I keep getting ads from Point of Sale companies who have these very pricey keyboard PC's for sale. They claim they are pretty handy as POS machines, which I can understand.
 
I don't understand how some of you think this is more portable than a netbook or regular laptop?
 
It had a cool factor for about 2 minutes, until I started to think of the logistics. it should have been the box with wireless keyboard though and a huge hard drive, but then why not put a dvd drive on it also because the drive is going to take up a bit of space. but then why not just make a normal tower. As for portability, why not get a net book.
 
Yeah I'm going to have to go with "wait and see". The more I think about it, the more impractical this keyboard is. Where do I set it down? Does it need to be plugged in all the time? If not, what's the battery life between charging? One movie? Two? Can the Atom and whatever onboard graphics it has handle high definition contents over it's wireless HDMI and wireless connection to a NAS?

A plugged in and immobile Viewsonic AirPanel sitting on your lamp stand probably has more practicality than this keyboard, or perhaps a touchscreen PDA with a remote app synced with an HTPC box.
 
uop_apisdn said:
I couldn't find anything in the article (or ariticles linked from the article) about OS choices... but I do see the "Windows(tm)" key on the bottom row, so I'm betting MS Windows XP (tm) is among the choices... if not the only choice.

Bleh.

Hoping for a flavor of GNU/Linux, myself.
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It comes with Windows XP Home.
 
Wireless HDMI? I'd be worried about lag on the screen. And pushing an HD stream over HDMI would probably kill battery life (if it had a battery). Sounds really neat, but I'd rather they just gave me the keyboard and touchscreen and let me have the HTPC hooked directly to the TV.
 
This would be an awesome platform using an Atom 330 Dual core Proc & the Nvidia Ion,(9400M/ 1080p support),also if it would take a 2.5 Sata drive One could upgrade that to a 500 GB model,would be nice to get dual channel ram support as well, but Alas I dream, lol :D
 
or you could get a htpc and wireless keyboard which is more practical and less prone to being destroyed by soda or dogs or kids or dropping or etc
 
That looks super nice. I'd like to know where ASUS is getting their engineers for the netbooks and products like these. Does anyone know?
 
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