If the Phantom Lapboard sounds familiar, it's because we covered the promising product earlier this year. After spending some hands-on time with the peripheral, it was clear Phantom had a winning design on its hands, provided the company could address the dropout issues with the mouse and other annoyances associated with the rodent. Whether or not the final version represented an improvement over the unit we played with was supposed to have been answered back in June when it was scheduled to be available in limited quantities.

June has come and gone, but the Lapboard is nowhere to be seen. Has it dropped off the face of the earth to become vaporware just as the Phantom Console did over two years ago? Not yet, and maybe not ever. Unlike the Phantom Console, which left Phantom's website as if it never existed, the company is still talking about the Lapboard. In a recent blog post, Phantom Development Consultant John Landino says Phantom has come up with inventory funding and paid for its first shipment of Lapboards, which the company hopes to start shipping in its yet-to-be-opened game store before the end of the year.

It's hard to argue with anyone who might be skeptical about this latest update, but remember that the Optimus Maximus was once well on its way to becoming vaporware before it started shipping.