W e've had the Eee PC netbook, Eee Top desktop, and now there's the Eee Keyboard. No, this is not a keyboard made specially for the Eee series, but a full-featured computer in itself.
But where's the display? How do we use applications? The trick is the 5-inch display where the numerical keypad typically sits on regular keyboards. It's small, but certainly bigger than most screens on today's PDAs or smartphones. Plus, it's a touchscreen, so it really is like a PDA, but with a full-sized keyboard on the side.
Despite the little screen, the Eee Keyboard is powered by an Intel AtomN280N processor running at 1.66GHz - not the fastest, but not the slowest either, and it runs Windows XP, just like most netbooks out there. It also sports 1GB of RAM and 16GB or 32GB of memory from a solid state drive.
What makes the Eee Keyboard really impressive is its networking support, which now includes not only Wi-fi, Bluetooth and Ethernet for hooking into the internet, and the assortment of ports (2 x USB, 1 x VGA for connecting to external monitors, and headphone and microphone ports), but also HDMI, which supports full 1080p playback, turning the Eee Keyboard into a high-definition media player.
And because it has all the processing components, it can also use the TV as a computer screen.
The Eee Keyboard is set to launch imminently. Prices should start at around US$400 (about HK$3,100).