The Bapaco Is a Keyboard and Screen for Your Existing Computer — and a Portable Computer Itself
Evoking memories of the Tandy-RadioShack TRS-80 Model 100, the Bapaco is a mechanical keyboard and widescreen display doubling as a laptop.
Electronics startup Shenzhen SIDIQIAO Technology has launched a crowdfunding campaign for a computing peripheral that is both a screen and keyboard for your existing PC and a standalone all-in-one PC in its own right: the Bapaco, launching under the new sub-brand Bapaco Tech.
"The world's first keyboard with a built-in computer, Bapaco combines the power of a full [Microsoft] Windows PC with the portability and convenience of a keyboard," Bapaco Tech's Yuntian Xu claims of the company's creation. "But it doesn't stop there! This innovative device also seamlessly connects to your Mac or Android devices, giving you the flexibility to work across three operating systems. With one-touch switching between two systems at a time, you can effortlessly transition from Windows to macOS or Android without missing a beat."
At the heart of the Bapaco is a 68-key compact hot-swappable mechanical keyboard, built around a five-layer structure that the company claims simultaneously quietens and enhances the noise of the switches during typing — and with the obligatory per-key RGB LED lighting, able to cycle through 20 pre-set patterns and animations. Above this is a 12.3" 1920×720 IPS display with ten-point capacitive touch — and both can be connected to an existing PC, tablet, smartphone, or other device to be used as simple peripherals.
Beneath both, though, is a fully-functional miniature PC powered by a 12th-generation Intel Core i5 processor with 10 cores, 12 threads, and a maximum turbo frequency of 4.4GHz plus integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics. Powered by a 5Ah battery, this turns the Bapaco into a standalone portable computer — borrowing its aesthetics from the classic Tandy-RadioShack TRS-80 Model 100, though with a tiltable display and considerably more computational grunt at its disposal.
The company is launching the Bapaco on Kickstarter as a barebones system, or with the buyer's choice of 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD or 32GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD; pricing starts at $599 for launch-day backers, a claimed 30 percent off the company's planned retail price.
All hardware is expected to ship in May this year, the company claims, though at the time of writing the company had shown no proven track record with crowdfunding.