So you’re playing a game, full-screen, no HUD or anything like that so you get the maximum viewing area, and QUICK! What’s your health?! How much ammo do you have? What the hell do you mean you have no idea?
Now imagine you could take the HUD off the sides of your screen and put them down by your keyboard. A quick glance down and you have the answer to these questions. That is, in fact, one of the best features of the Logitech G15 gaming keyboard: It’s got a backlit LCD screen that can be used to show game information, the time and your system’s stats, among other things.
Now add some keys for controlling music: play, pause, next, previous and the like. Throw a dial to control the volume now—and a mute button, too—as well as feedback for pressing these buttons right on the LCD. Sounds cool, no?
Right. Now, in addition to that, tack on a switch that allows you to disable the Windows keys so you don’t accidentally minimise your game by leaning on the keyboard, and two USB ports on the back for plugging other accessories in, like a mouse or gamepad.
Next up, take the left hand side of the keyboard. Put 18 buttons on it that can be assigned to do just about anything. Launch programs, switch weapons in a game, combat options in your favourite RPG, or different tools in Photoshop. You can also assign macros to the buttons so pushing one simply performs several keystrokes at once, like preset messages for use with in-game chat, or weapon control functions.
As if 18 of those buttons weren’t enough, there’re three mode buttons above them. Each button can be assigned a different action for each mode. So in theory, you’ve actually got 18*3, or 54 programmable combinations of keys down the left. In addition to these, you’ve got five buttons directly underneath the screen that act as “soft keys,” which are basically associated with an icon available at the bottom of the screen for doing things like checking your e-mail or changing modes.
Now, make the ENTIRE keyboard backlit. That’s right, the whole damn thing, the screen, every last button glowing blue in one of three different levels of backlit brightness. And it has handles. This is one impressive keyboard.
Playing games with it is extremely entertaining. Between the screen and the programmable buttons, you can pretty much get comfortable using it however you want. No two people will be very likely to have the same settings for a completely customisable keyboard like this. If you’ve got the money to spare, I’d suggest giving it to Logitech for this keyboard. It is really and truly worth it.
