Will Smith over at Maximum PC just reviewed the Phantom Lapboard—that keyboard from the Phantom console guys which we first held for ourselves back at E3 2004. Surprise! They think the keyboard “rocks”. Their official position is that the pivoting scheme is comfortable and works great for righties and lefties. The only problem is their mouse. It sucks. Not only does it have signal dropouts, the left click button is “wimpy”. Probably not worth your US$130 until they can work out the mousing problems. [Maximum PC]
CraigD
April 27, 2008 at 2:46 AM
The Bottom Line is; It’s out the Door, Amen!
Finally!!!
Don’t worry. I think I can sub the mouse until they can replace it. They have a return policy in place. Hey, even PS3 has a few bugs in it; or they wouldn’t be offering an inproved version this Summer.
Uh Oh! Here come the bashers!
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May 3, 2008 at 9:25 AM
Lol. Craig I remember you back on whereisphantom, and I see your posts frequently on the sites that report Phantom’s news. Sometimes I think you and I are possibly the only people still ravenously checking for info on when the company will release SOMETHING. I’ve always thought they had a killer idea with both the console and the lapboard, whether Tim R was a crook or not (a good idea is a good idea). I mean come on, a PC based console that takes all of the guesswork out of hardware (a huge number of people would love not having to configure anything), and solicits continual revenue from customers with a constantly updated library of games “pushed” in front of them through the service. They don’t have to go to a store to browse, they don’t even have to leave the couch to purchase the game. It’s like ITunes in the living room for video games! And the lapboard could be used on any PC or USB-enabled game system. Some people just like being on the bashing-wagon and don’t recognize good ideas. I’m happy that something MAY (might, possibly, could… knock on wood, crossing my fingers, not holding my breath, etc) come from the company. But ya gotta admit, even from the beginning the execution was just all wrong, and everything was mismanaged, bungled, etc. Koler seems like the only one so far with actual experience with this sort of thing, so maybe he can eek some blood out of this turnip. With Steam and GameTap doing so well now but being proprietary, I think his idea to switch to a licensing model for the game service is the right move. It ends up giving the little guys and big guys a way to profit from a on-demand game service. Of course this all hinges on ALL of the first batch of lapboards selling QUICKLY to show that demand is there, which leads to more financing and bigger production runs. Conversely, no one can deny that at this point, Phantom looks like a dirtbag company that doesn’t deserve any more money or trust. We’ll see…
And no, I did not come up with this handle to play off the “ph” in phantom. I’ve had it for years, before the company even existed.
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