After a formal release earlier in May, the all-in-one Asus Eee PC Keyboard is available for purchase at retailers, including Amazon, for $600.
The idea is to put an entire computer, including display screen, on what is essentially just a keyboard. The centerpiece, which is to the right of the full-size keys, is a 5-inch, rectangular, 800-by-480 pixel LED-lighted touch screen that looks a lot like an iPhone.
It is very crowded inside that slim wedge of a touch screen; Asus found spots for a 16-gigabyte solid-state drive, a gigabyte of RAM, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips, plus video outputs (including HDMI) and USB ports. Processing power comes from an Intel Atom chip. The computer runs Microsoft Windows XP version, not Vista.
The device is not meant to replace a laptop for mobile workaholics. And it won’t. The display is useful mainly as a window for Internet browsing, sending e-mail, using Facebook and receiving RSS feeds. In practice, it behaves like . . . well, a keyboard.
