Keyboard Legend

At one time (October 16, 2007), ASUS was not afraid to begin a new round of the spiral of mobile device development - absolutely true, they offered a netbook. A lot of posts appeared avalanchely, where, day and night, they discussed the three treasured letters “Eee”. Very soon, the opportunity to pump money from the new user "weakness" was appreciated by many other manufacturers, by releasing a car and a small trolley of clones, with its pluses and minuses.
Purebred "hedgehogs" were not going to retreat and confidently keep the defense to this day, filling up the slender ranks of recruits with new models - they insert a WiMAX module, expand the screen, draw a new surface, or release Intel with new, excellent ones. In general, it spun, spun - netbooks are and will be.

But in all this fuss, many have forgotten that they originally meant three letters in the name of the new devices. Initially, they meant “ Easy to learn, Easy to play and Easy to work ” - since so many things were put into this beautiful slogan, they tried to make the product for the widest possible audience. And, of course, it was possible to achieve this only with a favorable pricing policy for all - this, for example, was the reason for numerous budget developments, such as, for example, the same Intel Atom processors. Years went by, Atoms improved, technologies perfected - literally everything that is required for truly mobile devices appeared. By the way, over time, the interpretation of the abbreviation has changed to “ Easy, Excellent, Exciting ” - there is nothing left for the company, how to surprise ... and then another brave step was taken - the ASUS Eee Keyboard .
')


First of all, I’m upset (I don’t know how upset I am))) - I didn’t have this keyboard, so there’s no review from the live photo. And I generally started this conversation only because this keyboard was finally shown normally at CeBIT 2010, which gave rise to a new wave of desire for this device in me.

According to her passport, she is not just Klava - she is ASUS EeeKeyboard PC EK 1542 . I have no idea what this label means, but it is reliably known that inside there is an Intel Atom N270 processor with a clock frequency of 1.6GHz. He may already be bearded and has a small link, but nothing will prevent him from releasing the device with a new filling (there are screenshots from the N280 in the internet). Yes, and a lot depends on the device itself - for some purposes, and the N270 is enough with his head. Additionally installed "gig" of RAM and 16 / 32GB on a solid-state drive. HDMI, 802.11b / g / n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, miniature speakers, a 5-inch multi-touch screen ... it all appears as a “compact home media center” and is nothing more than a symbiosis of a conventional keyboard and personalki. Well, the “usual” - of course, a comfortable keyboard, with separate buttons)



Among the buttons, possessing, by the way, blue and white lights, hid two simple stereo speakers. The device turns on after pressing "Power", which is unexpectedly located in the upper right corner of the layout, where many people are used to seeing, for example, Del. Under it is the Home button, to navigate the menu screen. To the right of all the buttons there is a screen and already above it are several status LEDs.



All functional connectors are on the far side: stylus> ports for wireless antennas (Wi-Fi and Ultra Wideband)> 3xUSB> power connector> battery mode switch> Jacks for headphones and microphone> RJ-45> HDMI + VGA and vents.



An autopsy revealed ...

Inside

As with all ASUS netbooks, you can change performance settings on the Eee Keyboard - the ASUS Super Hybrid Engine presets change through the Fn + Space combination. This will not give a colossal increase in productivity, but the battery life will be quite prolonged. By the way, speaking of autonomy - while they promise only about 4-5 hours. Since there was no space for a hardware numeric keypad in the right part, in case of urgent need it is suggested to use it on ordinary letter buttons, which are activated after pressing “Fn + NumLk”



As for the operating system, there are 2 options - Windows and Moblin. The first option, whatever it may be, is not so interesting (it is difficult to imagine applications for the screen resolution of the device), but the second one ... very much so.



Moblin is Mob ile Lin ux - a project to develop a special version of the mobile OS Linux, which is almost entirely supervised by Intel employees. The goals of the Moblin platform are about the same as those of Google Android - to provide a whole class of devices with a standard operating system, with the only difference that Android is the OS for phones, and Moblin is the basis for so-called MID (Mobile Internet Devices), mobile Internet devices, the idea of ​​which Intel has been promoting for several years, and which, after Intel, are now developing and constructing dozens of manufacturers. Recently, Intel has made a great contribution to the development of the platform, strongly encouraging developers and developing its mobile app store on the Intel Atom platform - who are interested, welcome to AppUp .



The desktop consists of the following elements - in the upper part there is a taskbar (there is time, battery charge, status of wireless interfaces, etc.), below is the main workspace and just below - 6 functional icons:



Shortcuts : shortcuts to frequently used programs;
Web : shortcuts to popular sites, services, mail;
Fun : blackjack music, video, games;
Tools & Settings : Various settings and system applications;
Learning : Learning how some applications work there;
Info : quick access to information such as news, weather, etc.

Actually, I can’t tell you anything more, not because it’s a secret, but because I don’t know.



Where such beauty can be used? Mass options - like a regular keyboard, but with a server inside? Easy) Go ahead - an excellent and functional solution for the media center, as a compact reference material (recipes in the kitchen, a book on the car in the garage, cribs for the student, active work with business management and time management), CarPC, just as a gadget for ICQ, weather, news, and mail — it would be a point, and there’s definitely a place for her.

The end

Obviously, the device will not get such a glory, which went to netbooks - a very specific device came out. And even I ... but no, I lie - I certainly would have applied it. If you do not need a screen and, accordingly, all the internal bells and whistles in the form of processor discs, but at the same time you, like me, fell in love with the stylish appearance of the device, I advise you to pay attention to another keyboard novelty - ASUS Chiclet . This “clave” is also low-profile, but inside, as I said, is relatively empty. Wireless, compact, stylish and silent - almost like a y ... well, you get the idea)

But a more compact version, without a numeric keypad:







Soon the keyboard will be on sale and the price is unlikely to be higher than the usual netbook. I think we will meet again.



Successes!