Think your new $1,200 Vista-ready desktop is a bit pricey? Try this on for size: a keyboard that retails for more than $1,500. I'm not talking about your standard, plastic clickity-clak keyboard, mind you. Meet the Optimus Maximus, a much-anticipated—and long-delayed—masterpiece of a keyboard, which has tiny OLED displays on each key that change the layout of the entire keyboard depending on the application you're running.

The Optimus Maximus first emerged almost two years ago as little more than a lofty concept and some clever graphic renderings of how the dynamic keypad might work. However, while the Maximus looks suspiciously like one of those much-ballyhooed products that never sees the light of day, Engadget is reporting that the keyboard will finally debut in November—albeit in very limited quantities.

The idea behind the aluminum-clad Optimus Maximus is pretty cool: each key on the keyboard can change its symbol when, say, you hit the Shift key, run Photoshop, or fire up a keyboard-intensive game like Quake—no more memorizing complex shortcuts or making your game character jump when you wanted him to duck. The keyboard would also be able to switch languages and change to non-QWERTY layouts (such as Dvorak) in the blink of an eye. Of course, manufacturing a keyboard with little 36 x 36-pixel displays on each key isn't easy—or cheap, leading many to wonder whether the Maximus would ever arrive at all.

But the makers of the Optimus Maximus are now saying the keyboard will finally ship on November 30, for a whopping $1,536. Be prepared to stand in a long, long line for your Optimus Maximus, though; the manufacturer is promising only 400 finished keyboards by the end of the year, and just 400 more by January 2008. If you want a taste of how the keyboard will work, you can always snap up the Optimus Mini Three, a three-key version of the Maximus that retails for a mere $160.

Related:
Optimus Maximus gets price and date [Engadget]
Product page [Art. Lebedev Studio]