Optimus Reveals Pultius 15-Key OLED Keypad

If you’ve been yearning for Art Lebedev’s Optimus Maximus OLED keyboard, but $1877.43 sounds just a little expensive for a typing device, fear not, the company hears your plight. On Tuesday, the company revealed the 15-key Optimus Pultius as a cheaper alternative to the full 113-key Maximus.

Since most users probably set a majority of the keys on their Maximus keyboards to the standard QWERTY configuration, the sidebar of application keys ends up being the main attraction, and that’s what the studio has recreated with the Pultius. Designed to sit alongside a normal keyboard, it gives users a bank of fifteen keys, each with its own customizable display.

Although the company’s announcement makes no mention of price, we would guess that with 86 percent fewer displays, they should be a significant chunk cheaper than the original. Expect to see them launch at the end of 2008 or early 2009.