The New Logitech G15 Keyboard. Review on Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard

Introduction

I have been a gaming freak from childhood and learning shortcuts and commands to do various task from Keyboard was a necessity for me since my father used to hide the mouse so that I stop gaming/using my computer. But as they say necessity is the father of all inventions, in my case it was not invention but I learned the shortcuts for various tasks and in most instances I had to remember a combination of various keys. Fortunately we have now the G15 Keyboard through which we need not press/remember a bunch of keys to initiate/open various tasks(will get to it in detail later) and ofcourse use shortcuts in Games to improve our efficiency immensely.

Features

There are many features of the keyboard that strikes you when you see the keyboard. First is the Orange LCD display at the top of the keyboard, then there is the backlighting of the keyboard and then there is the name G15 on right corner of the keyboard which you cannot miss.

And of course there is a row of 6 extra keys on the left hand side from G1 to G6 which can be configured for various shortcuts or to run recorded macros. The M1-M3 keys and the Macro Record keys are above the G Keys and effectively makes 18 shorcuts to be used in any specific game/program. The currently active mode key will be lit up. The Macro Record key is for quickly recording a macro and then storing it into one of the G-keys. It's handy when you're in a game and quickly need to redefine one of the G-keys to perform a new function, though have not used it as of now but will do so in the near future.

Tactile Feel/Layout: The tactile feeling from the keyboard is nice. It is easy to type on, though I am still making a few mistakes like pressing the'G6' key instead of'ctrl' or the'G1' Key instead of'esc'. The keys do not rattle at all. There are no problems with pressing several buttons at a time, the keyboard processes such situations correctly but that is to be expected from such a costly keyboard.

Num Lock, Caps Lock and Scroll Lock indicators are located in their traditional place and are designed as appropriate symbols. There is a silver sliding switch  above the F3 and F4 keys which can be used to deactivate the Windows keys on the keyboard, this prevents you from accidentally bringing up the Start menu while in a full-screen game, this is a small but great feature for gamers like me since there have been numerous instances while in the heat of battle I press the windows start key to come to the desktop and then return back to see my character dead or in some games where the game simply hangs. Finally, there are two USB ports on the keyboard’s bottom. These are USB 1.1 ports intended for low-speed devices like mice, joysticks, low-resolution web-cameras, etc. there are grooves in the bottom of the keyboard that allow to route the cable to the USB port under it and put it out in front or at the right side of the keyboard.

Backlighting: The keys are black and it’s only the letters that shine with a amber light here. There is no bleeding from any side but it does not stand up to my expectation since backlighting is not uniform and some keys seems darker than the rest. But it doesn’t distract your eyes with its light, and the symbols on the keys are perfectly visible at any lighting, from daylight to full darkness. Though you can turn off the backlighting(there are 3 settings, off, bright and brighter), without the lighting, the keys become difficult to read. If you touch type like me, this isn't an issue but I am still getting used to the layout. However, the LCD is hard to read without the backlight, but I keep the lighting on all the time since I like my room dark.

LCD Display

Now the most stand apart feature of the keyboard is its LCD Display and hence the separate section for it, though its certainly not unique and the Orginal G15 Keyboard had it as well alongwith a few others like the Logitech’s diNovo and Cordless Desktop MX 5000 Laser. We will talk about what all information can it display and whether it is helpful for a gamer or not.

The keyboard features a LCD panel that displays stats from compatible games and applications as well as information about your computer like CPU and memory usage. One of the LCD screens is a clock with calendar, which is very handy. Games like WoW have out of box support for the LCD display. There are forums dedicated to customizing and adding more features but there are hardly any worthwile mention for any new games which certainly is disappointing. On the other hand, the possibilities of this screen are rather endless but have not been implemented yet.

On hindsight I think the LCD on G15 as of now is useless since there are just a handful of games that have support for the keyboard, and we can always look out for the CPU, RAM usage on the computer screen itself instead of the LCD screen on our keyboard.

Comparison with old G15 gaming Keyboard

Now one of the most confusing aspect of the old and new G15 keyboards is that both are called G15. But wait I searched and found out that the old one is called'[B]G15 Gaming Keyboard[/B]' and the new one is simply called'[B]G15 Keyboard[/B]' by Logitech. This doesnt sound reasonable since both are Gaming Keyboards and on the box of the New G15 it says something like'Gaming Jeux' but what the heck.

The major difference between the original and the new G15 is the reduced number of extra macro keys. The original had 18 G-keys, and the New one has only six, a third of the original. There are also three mode buttons M1-M2-M3 above the G-keys that allow you to switch between sets of functions for the keys, effectively giving you 18 different macros. However, the original G15 also had these for effectively 54 different key assignments.

The other major difference is the LCD. The new one has a noticeably smaller and fixed in position LCD, unlike the original LCD, which was mounted on a hinge and could be closed.

But the biggest difference between the new Logitech G15 on the old one is the size of the keyboard. By shaving off two of the sets of six G keys, Logitech was able to decrease the size significantly. The old one was 21.5 inches long and the new one is around 19.5 inches, which means that the new Logitech G15 is closed to the size of a standard keyboard and will fit most of the standard trays.

Additionally, the color of the keyboard backlighting has changed as well from the blue of the original G15 to an orange on the new G15. Personally I would have liked the option to choose between 3-4 different colors of backlighting.

It certainly is a keyboard which cant be beaten by any other keyboard sans maybe the original G15 keyboard. And if you have the moolah then this certainly would add a few more kills in an online shooting game or would help you build a base faster in a strategical game.