This mechanical keyboard is hiding a quad-core Android PC on the inside

[Shawn Knight]

Mechanical keyboards are a top choice among PC enthusiasts and gamers alike but it’s what’s hiding underneath the keys of the oneBoard PRO+ from Acooo that’s making headlines.

The board – sure to draw comparisons to the Commodore 64 – is laid out much like what you’d find on a notebook with Cherry MX black (medium stiff, non-clicky) switches. The black switches are an interesting choice as most modern keyboards opt to go a different route but then again, this isn’t your ordinary keyboard.

Under the keyboard is a fully functional Android PC and as The Tech Report notes, most of the hardware lives on a removable module that should make upgrading a breeze. Current iterations feature a Rockchip RK3288 SoC with four ARM Cortex-A17 cores clocked at 1.8GHz. There’s also a Mali-T764 GPU that handles graphics through the HDMI output.

Elsewhere, you’ll find 2GB of memory, 16GB of flash storage and an SDHC slot that accepts cards up to 32GB in capacity. Bluetooth 4.0 and 801.11ac Wi-Fi also come standard in addition to multiple USB ports, a DVI port and a headphone jack. It runs Android 4.4 out of the box.

And yes, if for some reason you don’t want to use the Android PC beneath, the keyboard can be hooked up and used with any PC via USB.

The entire setup is a bit gimmicky but in the same respect, it makes sense as any proper computer needs a keyboard. If you’ve got $299 to burn, the oneBoard PRO+ is available as of writing.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/59662-mechanical-keyboard-hiding-quad-core-android-pc-inside.html

 

[nismo91]

I just dont get it why would people want mini-sized Android PC under their keyboard and mouse? input devices are input devices, they don't get old and they do last. after a period of two years the cpu would be significantly outdated and all that remains is just a heavy gimmicky mechanical keyboard.

p.s. im still rocking a 8yo razer v1.6 mice right now.

 

[Bao Nguyen]

I just dont get it why would people want mini-sized Android PC under their keyboard and mouse? input devices are input devices, they don't get old and they do last. after a period of two years the cpu would be significantly outdated and all that remains is just a heavy gimmicky mechanical keyboard.

p.s. im still rocking a 8yo razer v1.6 mice right now.

I concur. Furthermore, does anyone else realize that this is just a laptop without the screen?

 

[Guest]

It's also incredibly misleading that this product is marketed (and mentioned here as) a "quad-core" computer as if number of cores alone means the computer is fast. It's a tiny 5W ARM chip at most, a dual-core Haswell processor is a LOT larger and run circles around it.
This tactic is clearly meant to deceive uninformed users. And it works, because I've seen people who comment on this very site that think their phones are faster than laptops because they have a "2.5 GHz quad-core", which is just comical.
And the deceipt goes further with the fact that the vast majority of apps on the Android ecosystem uses two threads at most, so save for a very few cases (mostly games) having four cores is just a waste of both silicon and TDP. But again, uninformed users are more drawn to a larger number of useless cores than to higher single-thread performance.

 

[oldikes]

It's also incredibly misleading that this product is marketed (and mentioned here as) a "quad-core" computer as if number of cores alone means the computer is fast. It's a tiny 5W ARM chip at most, a dual-core Haswell processor is a LOT larger and run circles around it.

this has been a marketing tactic since dual cores were commercially available and you act as if its a new thing.

 

[9Nails]

It's cute. As a web browser for the 12 and under kids it'll be just fine. But they'll want to game on it, so an upgrade in the future will be wanted. If PC board would could be upgraded in the sub $149 price that wouldn't be so bad.

 

[Guest]

this has been a marketing tactic since dual cores were commercially available and you act as if its a new thing.

No, it has not. When the Athlon 64 X2 and Pentium D were released, there were in fact much faster than their single-core counterparts. Similarly, when the Phenom X4 and Core 2 Extreme/Quad were released, there also where much faster than their dual-core counterparts, There was nothing misleading about that.
This deceitful practice has only become a thing very recently, after the rise of ARM on phones and tablets. While x86 manufacturers were not misleading anyone when advertising "quad-cores" (because they were indeed almost twice as fast as dual-core CPUs), ARM designers are trying to make people thing their products are an order of magnitude faster than they actually are (and people fall for it).
And a great example of this is Apple. With the A8 SoC, they have a product that outperforms the Snapdragon 801 in multi-threaded scenarios and is almost as fast as the 805, leaves both in the dust in single-threaded performance, and does so with two thirds of the TDP, half the ammount of cores, and a bit more than half the frequency when compared to Qualcomm flagships. Yet we still see "lol, 1.4 GHz dual-core, Apple is so outdated, they don't even have quad-cores like us" thrown around here and several other technology-related comment sections. Coupled with the fact that ARM designers are now pushing completely pointless eight-core CPUs (because the mass demands MOAR CORES), these marketing tactics and disinformation is not good for the progress of the industry.

 

[Guest]

Why has dedicated Cops button?

 

[Guest]

I guess a library, kiosk, store, airport or similar setting could see some use for this. It is an inexpensive perfectly quiet solution for those with very little need of performance.

Besides, I have been using a Minix Neo X7 running a RK3188 with 2 GB of RAM and it's quite OK for browsing most websites. I wouldn't worry too much about performance.