That's the $1.4K original design - why exclude mention of the second version?

Thanks, I hate it.

The concept is simple enough: It’s a keyboard with transparent keys and a screen underneath. The screen displays the labels for the keys, while the transparent plastic keys provide the physical haptic interface for the typist. The device uses a Raspberry Pi to drive the screen. [Inkbox] then designed a plastic frame and transparent keys, which are fitted with magnets, which in turn are read by Hall effect sensors under the display. This eliminates the need for traditional key switches, which would block light from the screen below.

I like dasher!! But that's require a constante visual attention and focus. Hard to keep it for long text.

Time and patience. I also don't find myself doing many number crunching activities, though.

I've considered problems similar to this.

IIRC, what I landed on was (1) if I could only use a d-pad, I'd try pushing the characters deeper into a maze-like tree structure (three d-pad presses [even reserving the direction you came from] easily gives you 36 possibilities: a-z + 0-9... more if you have push best-guess into the closer intersections), and (2) if I had an analog device (like the joystick in your example) I'd go with something like dasher... but I'm sure you could get dasher to work with a d-pad too, but it would be sub-optimal, methinks.

So, a laptop terminal.

I could see this combined with a handheld, but there are other options at a better price

I can see it being useful for students or the types of professionals that can use an iPad as a travel laptop, so you have this and your phone instead. Seems pretty awful for almost any other use case though

Seems like a stupidly expensive return to dumb terminals, which is not to say it's a bad idea for phones or tablets without a keyboard - just a ridiculously expensive one. Might not be as convenient, but I can get a perfectly usable keyboard and external touchscreen for somewhere close to half that intro price - let alone the regular price. Maybe I'm just too practical to be the target audience.

Y tho