webOS Bluetooth keyboard gets some eyes-on time, looks sharp 17

If you’re lamenting the lack of a physical keyboard on the HP TouchPad, Jon Rubinstein had good news for you at the Think Beyond event yesterday, and the good news is a sexy new Bluetooth keyboard designed to complement the TouchPad. We saw it in a leak back in December, and the chaps over at Engadget were able to get some camera time with the sleek new keyboard.

What they saw isn’t much different than what we saw in the leak: it’s a slim low-profile chiclet-style keyboard with a top row of webOS function buttons (brightness, media controls, volume, power, etc) over a standard QWERTY keyboard layout (including number row) with buttons specifically for launching card view and the webOS Symbol key to bring up the miscellaneous characters not available when holding shift on a regular keyboard. The keyboard itself has a nice smooth matte black finish, with a metal underside and hidden battery hump. Pricing and availability, like everything else announced at Think Beyond, is a big unknown. Overall it’s a slick compact design that we’re kind of digging. We’d just love to be able to actually use it someday.