ZrE0_Cha0s
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Finalmouse Centerpiece Keyboard Sports A Display Under The Keys And It Looks Amazing
Finalmouse is known for building boutique gaming mice, and it's about to add mechanical keyboards to its product lineup. The company's first mechanical keyboard will be the Centerpiece, a flashy input device with a full-color display under the keycaps. The board will have its own CPU and GPU, allowing it to run customizable skins based on the Unreal Engine. Finalmouse plans to charge $350 for the Centerpiece, which, believe it or not, is pretty cheap for high-end mechanical keyboards.The Centerpiece is a 65% keyboard, meaning no numpad keys, but you do get the standard layout of alphas, modifiers, and arrows. It's common for keyboards these days to have LED lighting of some sort, and a few have even experimented with small monochrome OLED displays. LCDs are much less common and never integrated into the design like this.
Under the Centerpiece's transparent keycaps is a color display of unspecified resolution. The demo video shows it playing impressively smooth video, interactive animations, and even simple games. The designers call this technology "DisplayCircuit Glass Stack." The keyboard will be able to store up to three Unreal-based skins at a time, and additional skins will be available in Finalmouse's "Freethinker Portal." It will encourage developers to create and share skins, and there will be support for selling skins, too.
High-end mechanical keyboards have definitely grown in popularity in recent years, and $350 wouldn't even be an unusually high price for one. However, the promises made in the demo video seem lofty for this price. Finalmouse usually only makes products in small batches, and you have to jump on the sales immediately to secure one. Devices will show up at other retailers after, often for much higher prices. Trying to buy one of the company's mice can cost you as much as $600-700.
Perhaps Finalmouse is saving money on the keyboard parts of its first mechanical keyboard. It talks about a few specifics, like the pre-lubricated Gateron linear switches, but it glosses over details a keyboard enthusiast would want, like stabilizer design, keycap profile, and mounting style. This feels more like a novelty for gamers and PC enthusiasts than a product for mechanical keyboard nerds, but that doesn't mean it's not cool.
If you want to try and get your hands on the Centerpiece, keep an eye on Finalmouse's site and social channels. It will release the board at an undisclosed time in early 2023.
An intersting and impressive keyboard with a unique features, but ain't sure who are their target audience.
sauce: https://hothardware.com/news/finalm...a-display-under-the-keys-and-it-looks-amazing
