News: ASUS Releases PC in Keyboard

Laptops are old hat. Gone are the days of carting around an enormous computer with an old-fashioned screen. We live in the future, dammit, and in the future we only need a keyboard.

Ushering in this brave new age is ASUS, who have jammed an entire PC, replete with an LED touchscreen, into the space normally reserved for typing.

ASUS have finally gotten around to releasing their Eee PC Keyboard after first unveiling the all-in-one device at the Consumer Electronics Show all the way back in January 2009.

Contained in the slim new device, which really isn’t any bigger than a regular keyboard, is a 16-gigabyte solid-state drive, a 1.6Ghz Intel Atom chip, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, a gigabyte of RAM. There’s also VGA and HDMI video outputs, plus a few USB ports to boot.

Where you’ll often find a number pad on QWERTY keyboards is instead a 5-inch touchscreen with 800×400 resolution, which can be used as a remote, a calculator, a browser and a media player.

No word on local release dates or prices as yet, although an international launch is expected sometime in June for around $US600. Keep checking Tone for details.