We’ve been waiting forever and it seemed like we might never see it, but ASUS’ EeeKeyboard now has a pre-order price on Amazon with shipping happening by end of next week. Looks like the final specs include a 1.6GHz Atom N270 chip, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, and a 16GB SSD.

Of course there’s the 5-inch LED-backlit multitouch display at 800 x 480 resolution. It runs Windows XP Home and has three USB 2.0 ports, an Ethernet port, HDMI out, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and an UWB receiver.

Well, it may not have gotten a 2009 release, but ASUS has just confirmed that the Eee Keyboard PC will go on sale next month for between $500 – $600. The price is about what we expected, but really we’re just glad it is finally arriving after such a long wait.

To refresh your memory, it runs on a previous generation Intel Atom N270 1.6 GHz processor, has a single DIMM slot, with 1 gigabyte of DDR2 memory and no accessible way to upgrade to 2 GB. A 16-GB SSD comes standard, with an option to go to 32 GB. It also has a built-in battery which lasts up to 4 hours.

Asus must be toying with us, but we don’t think it’s very funny. We’ve all been drooling over their entertainment-PC-in-a-keyboard with wireless HDMI for months. But where is it? They said we would see it in October, but now it’s delayed until early next year. What the holy f’ing hell? At least they’re making the 5-inch touchscreen a capacitive panel now.

Apparently the Wi-Fi/Ultra Wide Band aerial has been made into an external dongle, because the keyboard’s metallic body reduced the signal. A planned non-metallic version will still integrate the wireless receiver.