It’s back! This mechanical keyboard with a touchscreen monitor could be the perfect partner for my smartphone – shame it has two major pitfalls waynewilliams@onmail.com (Wayne Williams) | usagoldmines.com

• Keyview 13″ Touch is a mechanical keyboard with a built-in 13-inch touchscreen
• It works with phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, and even game consoles
• There’s no battery or touchpad unfortunately, so you’ll need to provide power and a mouse

The Keyview 13″ Touch, from Aura Displays, is a compact 82-key mechanical keyboard (83 keys for the UK version) with a fun, and useful twist – it has an integrated 13-inch touchscreen attached.

This isn’t the first product of its kind we’ve seen – we’ve previously covered the Maxfree K3 and the Thanko mechanical keyboard with a 10-inch monitor, both of which offer the same blend of keyboard and display in one unit.

We’ve also encountered various DIY projects that produced laptops without displays, as well as notebook docking stations with built-in screens, but few of those have been as polished or feature-packed as this.

RGB lighting and custom shortcuts

The Keyview 13″ Touch’s screen folds from 0 to 90 degrees and delivers a 1920 x 720 matte IPS display. It supports full 10-point multitouch and has a wide 178° viewing angle, making it usable for video, docs, or just as a second screen.

The keyboard itself uses yellow mechanical switches and PBT keycaps. It’s fully customizable, with hot-swappable keys, RGB lighting, and support for custom shortcuts.

The device includes USB-C, HDMI, two USB 3.0 ports, an SD/TF slot, and an M2 SSD bay for internal storage expansion. It also supports 60W PD fast charging.

It’s compatible with macOS, Windows, Android, Linux, and ChromeOS. That means it works with laptops, desktops, full-featured USB-C phones like the Galaxy line, latest iPhones, tablets, and even game consoles.

The case is made from aluminum alloy, ABS, and PC plastic. It’s solid but weighs 2.12kg, which makes it more of a backpack item than something pocketable.

There’s also a built-in speaker, rated at 1W. That’s nothing special, but it will be fine for notifications or quick audio tasks.

There are a couple of bigger drawbacks, though – there’s no battery for starters, so you’ll need to plug it in every time you want to use it. And there’s no touchpad either, so unless your device is touch-capable, you’ll want to bring a mouse too.

Still, for a certain type of user, especially those wanting to turn their phone into a capable workstation, it’s an unusual and potentially useful option. You can buy it direct from Aura now for $399.00, 20% off its usual MSRP of $499.

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