The G15 - Too Much and Not Enough
Logitech makes great products, and it is rare that I have a complaint about anything they take to market. I am currently on my 5th Logitech webcam, my third Logitech mouse, and my third Logitech keyboard. I have tried interface devices from many other manufacturers and no one seems to quite get it as right as Logitech does. Even though the configuration and management software gets a little goofy or overcooked now and then, the hardware itself is usually terrific.
The G15 was a surprise, because I didn’t really find it to be very good, very well made, or even very useful. The stuff that Logitech always does so right seemed to be missing from the entire equation. This keyboard feels cheap.
The big selling point of the G15 – and what I assume is the justification for the $100 price tag – is the LCD readout riding the top of the keyboard.
I have to admit, part of the draw for the IDEA of the G15 is this screen, which gives you real-time readouts of information about whatever game you’re playing, so long as the game itself is compatible with the G15 and someone has created an app for it. The screen can also show you the time, give you email notifications, show you stats about your computer’s hardware and network connections. I had mine doing all of that, and I also had it showing me RSS feeds about political risk news in the United States. All of this activity is managed from within the Logitech software cluster.
So, that’s cool, right? I thought it would be, but the bad news is that it ain’t. Even for someone who is a super power user (read: nerd) like me, as tiny orange LCD screen with tiny bits of extra information isn’t all that useful. In fact, it is somewhat distracting.
The same goes for gaming – everything it can show me I can see somewhere else in the display of whatever I’m playing. Yes, it can show you aspects of your character that you would have to open another panel or something to be able to see, but in order to see it on the G15 you have to look away from the screen. Whether you’re Lich Kinging or CounterStriking, that’s never a good plan.
There were some aspects of the G15 that I was more practically excited about. This updated version of the fan favorite from two years ago features a number of small changes, including a smaller overall chassis and profile. It also has USB ports around the LCD. The smaller overall size improves the form factor, I suppose: the original model was pretty huge’n'bulk. However, that smaller frame means a smaller keyboard, and it didn’t sit correctly under my large hands. As for the USB ports, they were only a connection to more disappointment – they can’t support anything with significant power draw, including high-end headsets or even an iPod. It is fine with taking a USB flash drive, but that is about it.
Also: the keys feel squishy. That’s hard to quantify, but I’ll give you some background. My first wireless keyboard was a Logitech Wave, which was and still is a wireless mouse and keyboard pair they sell with varying bells and whistles for $80 – $120 dollars. I loved it for all of the groovy functionality built in with good design, but I think what I loved most about it was the tactile response from the keyboard. It was firm and sprung a little bit like the old IBM PS/2, and it wasn’t a waterbed like you find on some laptops. It was just right.
I bought the Wave in 2008 when I officially set up my home / freelancing office, and after two years of lots and lots and lots of abuse, the only thing that has degraded on my Wave keyboard is the key response. It is now just a bit too squishy, and that doesn’t feel right, which is why I was shopping in the first place. The G15′s keys are not an improvement – they are squishy right out of the box.
As for gaming, the G15 has two features which carry real utility.
- You can toggle the Windows button’s functionality on and off, so that if you accidentally hit while playing a full screen game it wouldn’t bump you out of it to show you your Start menu.
- The G keys, a set of 6 extra keys to the left of the main keyboard, are programmable in three iterations. This means you can add up to 18 hot keys to your gaming or workflow functionality, and do things like Paste, Show Desktop, open a webpage, or even execute complex macros with one keystroke. In macro-heavy massively multiplayer games, this is really quite useful.
The downside to the whole deal, though, is that those very legit features are included in an overly complicated input device that costs at least $30 more than it should.
Also, the keys are backlit, but the only color you get with the G15 is orange, and the two models I used had spotty illumination on some keys like Caps Lock and Tab and some of the function keys. If you’re going to sell a keyboard with key backlighting as a primary feature, it has to look good and not chintzy.
I don’t know what happened – a whole generation of gamers swears by the original G15, but I see here doesn’t seem like it could translate to that kind of broad appeal. I think, in the end, ‘chintzy’ is the operative problem: It looks chintzy and it feels chintzy and it costs $100, and the bells and whistles don’t make up for the other shortcomings of this device.
Score: The Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard gets a 2 out of 5.
