OCZ Sabre OLED Gaming Keyboard

Move over, Optimus. OCZ hacks down the price on OLED keyboards with a more practical model.

The dream of a keyboard with customizable OLED keys that change to anything you want lives on. Though our experience with the very first OLED keyboard soured us a bit to the idea (and if you actually bought an Optimus Maximus, put you out $1,877), other companies are starting to take Art Lebedev’s lofty aspiration and distill it down into something practical.

OCZ Technology’s Sabre keyboard follows the same concept, but makes a number of compromises to bring the price down. Rather than offering a full slate of OLED keys – most of which you’re just going to want to be letters anyway – OCZ has tacked on a grid of nine to the left-hand side of any otherwise normal keyboard. And in another move to cut cost, they’re all monochrome amber OLEDs, unlike the Maximus’ full-color ones. Even so, you can choose any image you want to fill a given key, from a BioRifle for Unreal Tournament to an arc-drawing tool for Autodesk Inventor.

Short of the OLED keys, the Sabre also features a tough rubber coating on its other keys that should allow them to last for over 5 million cycles, blue LED sidelighting, and adjustable tilt.

How much will gamers have to plunk down to lay their fingers on glowing amber array of limitless possibility? Between $138 and $180, depending on the retailer. Check out OCZ Technology for more information.