Portable keyboard hiding full Windows PC borrows your tablet's screen

Hero Devices wants to turn the screen you already own into a proper Windows computer, with a slim keyboard that carries the entire PC inside it. It includes a full-sized trackpad, and looks almost exactly like the bottom half of a laptop.

Cramming a computer into a keyboard isn't a new idea. We've seen it from budget-friendly options like the Raspberry Pi 400, and earlier this year HP brought the concept to business users with its Windows-based EliteBoard G1a. On the other end of the spectrum, devices like Sightful's Spacetop have experimented with ditching the laptop display altogether in favor of AR glasses.

The Hero Keyboard lands somewhere between the two, designed to plug into whatever display happens to be nearby. That includes the iPad or Android tablet that's probably already in your bag.

The logic is simple enough: if you travel with both a tablet and a laptop, you're paying for (and carrying) two screens. The Hero Keyboard wants to be the missing half of that setup, and it has a few clever tricks to make the arrangement feel less like a workaround.

Inside, the keyboard/trackpad runs an Intel Core Ultra 5 125H processor with 14 cores and speeds of up to 4.5 GHz, paired with 16 GB of LPDDR5 RAM and a 512-GB NVMe SSD. That drive sits behind a removable bottom panel held on by eight standard screws, so you can swap in more storage later. Hero Devices is also keen to point out that this is a full, licensed copy of Windows 11, not an emulator or a streaming shell.

The keyboard measures 11.8 mm (0.46 in) thick, weighs 720 g (25 oz), and features a backlit US layout, a precision trackpad, and a dedicated Copilot key. There are eight ports in total, including USB-C, USB-A, and Ethernet, and it can drive two displays at up to 4K 60 Hz. A 50.8-Wh battery is rated for up to nine hours of use, and a 100-W USB-C charger comes in the box.

To connect to tablets and phones, the Hero Keyboard uses a wired USB-C link it calls the Hero Port, which the company says delivers zero-latency video without relying on Wi-Fi. A companion Hero App, coming soon for iPadOS 17+ and Android 7+, adds touch and stylus input. When Windows is switched off, the device simply works as a Bluetooth keyboard and trackpad for the tablet itself.

The Hero Keyboard Founders Edition is priced at US$999. Reservations opened on October 20, and the limited first batch is slated to ship in Q4 2026 to the US and Canada. For an extra $50, the optional Sidekick case carries the keyboard PC and an 11-inch iPad together, then unfolds into a tablet stand. Hero Devices says that combination weighs around 1.2 kg (2.6 lb) in total.

Beyond tablets, Hero Devices is positioning the keyboard as a portable brain for any screen. You could plug it into a monitor at your desk, a TV for some couch gaming, or a pair of AR display glasses like Xreal's for a big, private screen while traveling.

There are some open questions. Windows on an 11-inch display needs heavy scaling (Hero Devices recommends 200 to 250%), the iPhone isn't supported by the Hero App yet, and a cable between keyboard and tablet won't be quite as tidy as a laptop hinge. Still, for anyone already carrying a capable tablet, the Hero Keyboard makes a compelling case that your next laptop might only need to be half of one.

Source: Hero Devices