| Logitech G15 Keyboard | ||
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Product: Logitech G15 Keyboard You’ve probably heard, or at least seen this keyboard before—it’s hard to miss. Coming from the well established Logitech, this board is their top-of-the-line peripheral targeted to the gamer with everything. With features that include an LCD display and eighteen extra macro keys, she’s loaded for war. Features/Specs-
Packaging-
The G15-
Upon first looking at the keyboard, I noticed how large it was. Having the extra 18 keys adds a good four inches to the left of where your keyboard stops, and where I usually rest my hand. The sheer size has yet to stop throwing me off. When trying to tap Tab I never fail to hit one of the G keys. The keys are individually backlit with two light settings and off. Caps lock and such lights are a steady level, and thanks to their orange color are easy to spot. Coating the top and bottom surfaces of the board is a positive grip material for the extra edge. I found the USB cable to be a little on the short side, but adequate. The risers to raise the board’s angle are set to flip outwards sideways. No doubt this will stop the keyboard from slipping forward and dropping the risers down. The board offers a plethora of useful features. The G keys can be assigned to whatever you wish, be it programs, documents, keystrokes, and even sets of keystrokes complete with timing control. No doubt the World of Warcraft fans will be drooling at the thought of whole attack sequences on a button. If eighteen keys aren’t enough for you, there are three modes to switch between, each a potentially different set of commands for the G keys. On top of that, there’s a macro record button to capture keystroke sequences on the fly and in game.
Taking a page out of Apple’s book Logitech has equipped the board with a USB port on each side of the LCD display. Below the USB ports are the “Gaming Mode” switch and mute/backlight buttons. The standard assortment of play/pause, stop, and rewind/fast forward buttons surround a volume knob underneath the LCD. The included software runs in the system tray and lets you customize LCD display modes and G Key assignments. My experience- Setting this up was painless. As always I set it up without reading any instructions or installing any software. Windows was able to pick it up and recognize all the features except the G keys and LCD display. I took this opportunity to fool around with the feel of the board for a while. The keys are solid, but lack the definitive click that my IBM model M and Logitech Cordless Elite have. Fortunately this is one of the few Logitech keyboards that still have the normal QWERTY layout with normal navigation buttons (page up/down, home/end, insert, and delete). The tilt of the keyboard is a little awkward. With the risers tucked away it tilts forward, and while the keyboard is ergonomic I am unable to acclimate to it. With the risers out it’s pretty much zero-tilt, and while I don’t love it, I can live with it. The media keys are simple, but touchy. It’s not uncommon to accidentally double-press the buttons. I enjoyed the backlight feature, as it is bright enough but not overpowering.
“Gaming Mode” is a little disappointing; it merely disables the Start/Windows menu keys from being pressed.
The LCD is one of the major selling points, but I did not find it to be very useful. The included modes are a lackluster system monitor (CPU/RAM usage), media display and a clock. If you have one of the (3) supported games it can display information such as health and ammo, but I would not look at my keyboard to learn that in the middle of a firefight. More user-created display options are available from http://www.g15mods.com/ and http://www.g15forums.com/. I found the media display to be useful, as it meshes with iTunes and shows a “now playing” display that is similar to that of the iPod. The display is very well backlit and responds to the keyboard’s various lighting levels.
The true disappointment of the keyboard is not the hardware, but software. Currently I have a rather elaborate setup consisting of mostly Logitech hardware. One base station controls my Cordless Elite keyboard and MX700 mouse. Another wireless base station communicates and docks the MX1000, and now the G15 is plugged in. That’s not a bad thing—USB ports are ubiquitous—but each piece of hardware has its own piece of software. This is getting absurd; it feels as though Logitech software is overtaking my machine. It doesn’t help that the G15’s “Keyboard Profiler” is one of the most inept programs I’ve ever used.
On a purely aesthetic note, there is no way to disable the system tray icon. The whole system is run by profiles. The software looks for games you have installed, finds half of them, and creates blank profiles for you to use. This way, when you load a game, its profile and corresponding macros are loaded. Setting up profiles wasn’t bad, but the interface to get anything done was either far too decorative or sparse. While I was able to assign the G keys to keystrokes and macros, I was unable to get the “Assign to Shortcut” to work. If I can’t launch programs with the G keys, I’m not very efficient at browsing/typing. It feels rushed, and needs refining. Hopefully there will be improvement in future versions. Conclusion- I didn’t like the G15 as much as some other reviewers, but this is not to say it’s a bad keyboard. It brings a ton of features to the table, but fails in a few crucial areas. The keys feel tight, and the backlight is good. The functionality is certainly there, and will be more noticeable when there is more support from in games and Logitech’s own controller programs. I would like to see a database of downloadable LCD plugins, and some refinement in the Profile Manager. With a little more work this would be almost perfect, but unless you play WoW and absolutely need the macro functionality, I wouldn’t recommend purchasing this particular keyboard. Maximum CPU gives the 4.5 / 5
Pros- + Good feel/form Cons- - Not enough game support for the LCD |
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