It’s a mini adventure

I popped open the shipping box, and I was generally excited. I’ve read a lot about the Optimus project, mainly the full 103 key keyboard, and the Mini three is a little taster of what’s to come. The retail box is quite obviously put together by a seasoned graphics designer who cares more about aesthetics rather than information. Far from a good thing, the front is interesting and the Mini three is shown in its full glory.

Once opened, you don’t really get a great deal of bits and bobs; the Optimus Mini itself and a straight-to-the-point manual that looks like it should contain a driver CD. Instead it lists humorous comments about how the Optimus isn’t going to enjoy a couple of minutes in the microwave or washing machine. You also get a nice 1 year warranty with the unit expected to last 3.

The Mini three is a simple(!) device which has three square buttons on the front in an extruded oval rectangle body. These three buttons have small OLED screens which have a 96x96 resolution. These screens can show anything that you like and the button press to do whatever you like. It’s the next stage up from the standard additional display such as the XSPC unit, or the Pertelian. The OLED’s are the next stage from TFT technology as they are made from organic components (hence the name - Organic Light Emitting Diode). Read more about OLEDs in our glossary here. While a TFT display requires a backlight, OLED’s shine their own light which means that they use less power (most of a laptops battery power goes to the backlight inverter).

The screens are full colour, and have a refresh rate of 3 fps which means they aren’t going to be much use for video but more than enough for a static button. The front of these buttons have a 5mm frame and they look similar to the screen on a mobile phone. The buttons are glossy and perfectly flat to prevent any visual distortion.

The Mini three connects to your PC via USB which makes compatibility universal and it even supports the Apple generation. The USB cord is silver and doesn’t really fit with the look of the main unit; it would have been nice to see a black cord instead. However, it is nice and flexible so positioning the unit shouldn’t be an issue.

Looking at the back of the unit you find two oddly shaped grey rubber pads that grip your desk nicely.