Optimus 103 has become quite famous, even though it is actually still take several months until we will see the unique keyboard outside of Art Lebedev’s labs. Many have been fearing that the ambitious project wouldn’t result in anything, but it has now been announced that Optimus 103 will be presented at CeBIT at the end of the month and that the planned launch is still as expected. The keyboard will cost $1,200 with its 103 OLED keys. For the not so rich rich, Art Lebedev has also designed an Optimus 103 with exchangeable keys, where you also get keys without displays.
The whole point of the keyboard is kind of lost then and even if you can indeed change the look of the keys, even to displays when you can afford them.
“We’ve optimized key sizes to have as few press molds as possible and to make it easy to handle the stock. Since all the keys are changeable and can be outfitted with displays, it’s not a good idea to have ‘right control key’ and ‘left control key’ to be different parts (and part numbers).
Space bar is one of its kind. Then come three others: regular key, middle-size key, and double-size key. That’s it.”
