Customer Reviews

Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard

5 star:		(108)
4 star:		(44)
3 star:		(21)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Just got the Logitech G15 Gaming keyboard yesterday, and overall I'm impressed by the flexibility and potential it offers. However, don't let the attractive design of the keyboard and the sweet looking LCD screen you see in the pictures fool you. The real draw of the G15 can all be found on the left side of the keyboard.

The best feature of this keyboard really isn't the LCD display, but its capability to create keyboard macros. The G15 features 18 additional "G" keys on the left hand side of the keyboard, which are completely customizable to playback complicated sequences of keystrokes (i.e. macros) for whatever game or Windows application you might have. These 18 keys can each be reassigned under three different "M" keyboard maps, giving you the capability to assign 3 different macros on one G key. Think of these keys as a hardware version of Keyboard Express built into your keyboard--only the macros are "hard-wired" to specific applications, i.e., the macros only work once an application you assign to it is running on your PC. In a nutshell you a) launch the included G-Series Keyboard Profiler software, b) name and assign a macro to a specific executable program, and then c) record the keystrokes to the macro. Only after you run the designated program the macro becomes available for use.

Logitech included premade profiles for Battlefield 2 and Star Wars Battlefront in its Profiler software. As you might imagine these profiles contain some basic prebuilt macros assigned to G-Keys for those specific games, giving your keyboard some added functionality. As for the Profiler software itself--it isn't all that flashy, but contains some great tutorials to get you started. It isn't rocket science creating macros on this keyboard, but it isn't clear-cut easy either. Going through the help tutorials in the included software is a good idea. If you're not at all interested in reading, it's also pretty simple to create a macro on the fly using the Quick Macro function--just hit the MR record key, choose a G key, enter your keystrokes, then hit the MR key to stop recording. It's very simple to create macros on the fly this way.

The G Keys can also be assigned to general apps under the standard profile--default web browser, calculator, email program, My Computer, and default media player. So in essence it retains the functionality of Logitech's other keyboard, the Media Keyboard Elite.

The LCD display is a whole lot less useful than the G Keys. In the normal Windows environment it provides very basic information--one display option gives you a basic clock with hands along with the digital time and date. Another option gives you the current CPU and RAM usage in a percentage bar. It will also display basic information about the file you are playing in your default media player. Apparently you are able to use the LCD display within games, but according to the help software the game must come with "LCD support". So, ultimately (out of the box at least) the LCD isn't very useful or helpful. It's a very basic display, as well -- not too much different from the $5 LCD alarm clocks you can buy at the Jewelry section at your local Target.

The G15 has some other noteworthy features-more specifically backlit keys for late night play, 2 additional USB ports, and full media player controls. The backlit keys give a pretty nice blue glow to the keys and two brightness settings are available. The LCD screen becomes backlit along with the keys as well. The two USB ports are a disappointment from my experience. I could not connect my Motorola MPX220 cell phone to my PC through the ports on the keyboard--Windows kicked back a message that the port did not have enough power to support the device. The keyboard also features a cable management system (which are actually just wire channels under the keyboard) to prevent cable clutter. Nothing fancy, but it gets the job done.

Ergonomically the keyboard is pretty standard fare for Logitech. The keys themselves are slightly smaller than in the Media Keyboard Elite, but really no less comfortable. They also give about the same tactile response as in other Logitech keyboards. One thing to keep in mind is that this keyboard, with its additional G keys and flip up LCD display, is on the big side, so it may not fit on your keyboard drawer with the LCD display in the open position. The keyboard itself is about 21 1/2"L x 8 1/2"D x 3 1/2" H with the feet up and the LCD monitor flipped open.

Overall I can't help but feel "suckered into" buying this keyboard by looking at its sleek design and LCD. I expected a lot more functionality from the LCD display out of the box. However, I am satisfied with the overall flexibility the G15 offers. So ultimately the true beauty of the G15 lies beneath the surface.

I have been using a Gateway AnyKey keyboard for years and have resisted changing because of the programmable features built into that keyboard. My keyboard was nearly dead and I was not looking forward to replacing it with one without its built-in programmable keys. A friend pointed me to this keyboard and I decided to give it a try. It is spectacular. I have no idea if it works well for gaming, but as a productivity tool, the on-the-fly recording of macros is a huge time saver especially for software developers. I like the touch of the keys and the extras like volume and media control work great. This keyboard will pay for itself in productivity gains in a day or two.

this is really the best keyboard ever. it replaces all the zboards. you might like the layout of the zboards better, but if you don't care, then this is THE budget buy for you. the 18 G keys are fully custumizable with most games as old as warcraft 3 and mabye even some older games. the g keys also have different "m" keys. the m keys are for different users, so if you have a brother that likes to customize the buttons differently but for the same game, he can do it his way on m2 while your options are on m1. so really, you have 54 G keys (18x3). and the buttons change by application. so if your playing battlefield 2, the G keys set to what you put for battlefield 2, so when you go back to your desktop, the g keys change to the shortcuts you put for it. this completely replaces zboards. why spend 100-200 dollars for a couple different zboards when you can spend 60-70 dollars on this. the lcd screen also works for media players (itunes, windows media player, etc). it tells you what song ur listening to, the author, and allows you to change songs, and volume right on the keyboard. the lcd screen tells you the time, date, ram, cpu usange, game info (depends on game), song info (depends on song).

pros-
1. lcd screen tells you a ton without looking at the screen.

2. there is the game button that when you turn it on, it disables the windows key and other functions that bring you to the desktop (AWSOME for hardcore gamers)

3. backlit keys for late night playing

4. has a 1.1 usb hub that can take 2 usb cords.

5. g keys fully customizable to games/everyday uses.

6. m keys allow 3 users to custumize g keys their way.

7. the media buttons on the keyboard actually work.

8. the volume control is a circle and not 2 seperate buttons.

9. sometimes, game chat can be seen on lcd screen.

10. typing doesn't make as much noise as a standard keyboard

11. keys are soft (this seems like nothing right now, but it actually feels so much more confortable after a lot of typing)

cons-

1. not wireless

2. level 2 brightness isn't too different from level 3 brightness on backlit keys (but it really doesn't matter)

3. pretty big

4. usb hub is not 2.0

5. the wrist rest it comes with isn't exactally the most efficient (but still works)

6. instructions are hard to find (most likely you'll have to learn how the keyboard works by yourself)

so there are more pros than cons, and the cons aren't really serious things excluding the wireless part. hardcore games will love this keyboard because of the gaming switch, it locks all functions that make the game go to desktop, so you will never get really close at killing a boss then hitting windows key. it IS pretty big, its the largest publically sold keyboard. and unfortunately the usb hub is 1.1 and not 2.0. but otherwise, this keyboard is l33t. if your looking for a new keyboard by itself, i HIGHLY recommend this one, for gamers, this is a budget buy because of the replacement of the Zboards.

it gets a 5 out of 5 for me

SEE UPDATE BELOW!
After 2 months of daily use the paint on the keys is wearing off to the point I now have several keys that are just clear circles. Since I'm a touch typist I'm not completely crippled by this, but I still find this to be a major quality issue so I will be putting Logitech on the bottom of my list of options on future keyboard purchases. As a side note, I feel the backlit keys on this keyboard is really more bling then functional because the color of the light and low light output requires you get fairly close to the keys to see the keys correctly so in complete darkness the feature provides limited functionality. Besides after limited use the keys will lose the paint and become just blue circles of light.

The macro keys seem to function as designed but this isn't the only keyboard with this feature so really unless you plan to use this keyboard strictly for bling I would look for a better product.

UPDATE:
I contacted Logitech support and explained my issue with the paint and they gave me a RMA number to send my keyboard back for a replacement. They also told me this was a known issue and that the paint on the keys of the replacement keyboard would not wear off! And I'm happy to report after about a month of use I do not see any signs of wear on the keys. So if you buy this keyboard you might try to validate it is one of the new versions but I'm not sure how you would do that. But if you already have this keyboard and the paint is coming off try contacting Logitech support to get an RMA.

I've had this keyboard for about a month, and the letters on the keyboard are starting to blur. The "e" key is barely legible, and other keys are showing problems. I wrote to product support about this, so I'll see what they have to say about the problem. At the moment though, I have to not give it the 5 stars I was going to give it when I first got the keyboard.

I waited a while to purchase this keyboard, but picked it up on sale a few weeks ago. Overall I am enjoying the keyboard. My last keyboard was the (also backlit) Saitek Eclipse. I really enjoyed that keyboard, but it was missing out on some basics like media keys, so I felt I needed to upgrade.

THE POSITIVES:
The G15 does come with a good set of media keys, including a volume control and mute button. The LCD configures to show the tag information from Winamp, so I can check that without having to open the program. This media control/access makes it worth it for me to have upgraded from the Eclipse. There is also a "game mode" switch, which shuts off the Windows key, so that you don't get booted from a game if you accidentally hit it. In my extensive gaming career, this has only happened to me a few times, but each time it did it was a huge frustration. With the G15, you just switch it to game-mode, and you don't have to worry about it.

Additionally, there are the G-Keys. I primarily bought it for my flight simulators so that I could create macros. I understand it can also be used for the RPG games for spells and such, but I don't actually play those, so I can't say how it would work there. I'm not playing a flight sim at the moment, so I haven't had a chance to really use them yet. I'm going back and forth between Half-Life 2 and Battlefield 2142 at the moment, and haven't felt any sort of need for extra keys in either game. There are 18 keys, with three modes, giving a total of 54 programmable keys. (Add that to my programmable Saitek X45 flight stick/throttle, and it's a great setup for flight).

The keyboard looks nice. It has a brushed-metal looking insert over a sort of rubberized main housing. The blue light is cool, especially in the dark. And the LCD makes it look all the more techy. The little 'handles' at the top also give it kind of a utilitarian look, even though they're kind of useless. The keyboard naturally slopes slightly downward away from the user, which is kind of weird to me. There are some flip-out feet on it to make it slope toward the user, and I prefer this configuration. The nice part is that these feet flip out sideways (instead of front-to-back) so that they don't collapse when you move the keyboard forward or back. That was a problem with my Eclipse and some other keyboards I've had.

THE NEGATIVES:
The brightness selector on the keyboard CLAIMS to have three settings, which is kind of misleading since one of the 'settings' is actually just the "off" setting. The other two settings are somewhat redundant, because there is very little difference in brightness between them. Since owning the keyboard, I have only ever used it in the "Bright" setting. The medium setting is too dim to really be effective when the room is lit, and not really noticeably different from bright in the dark. The "off" position is only used when I want the room to be completely dark. I have my computer in my bedroom, so when I want to sleep, I turn the keyboard off so there's not a blue glow throughout the room. The "off" position is useless when the room light is on, because the contrast between the letters and the keyboard is not high enough that you can read the letters easily with the backlight off. Even with the backlight on it's brightest setting, when there's light on in the room it can be difficult at times to read some of the smaller symbols (ie. > * - ~ ).

There are two USB ports on the keyboard. I thought this would be a great access point for my thumbdrive and mp3 player, but unfortunately the ports are USB 1.1, which makes them all but useless for most purposes. I tried to plug in my thumbdrive the other day, and it just said there wasn't enough power to operate it. I don't see why Logitech even bothered to put the ports on there, if they weren't going to make them USB 2.0.

The LCD support is severely limited. The marketing material makes it seem like the LCD is simply plug-and-play for any game or application. Really, it comes down to having to have a LCD applet created for a specific game or program. The included media display is nice, and there is also a clock and system performance monitor. For everything else, you have to find somewhere to download an applet (much like an addon for Firefox) to give the LCD functionality. There are a couple of websites/forums that claim to be making mods and applets for the G15, but I haven't found much useful stuff on there. If you have some programming knowledge, you can make your own for it, but don't expect Logitech to have much to choose from. I did find a nice monitoring-applet for my Battlefield 2142 game, but the Gmail notifier applet I found didn't work at all. So it can be hit-and-miss with what you find. Also, since the mods aren't Logitech-made, you're taking a risk by installing things homemade applets on your computer.

THE SUMMARY:
With any new keyboard, there will be some getting-used-to. For me, I had been using the left edge of my old keyboard as a guide to where the keys were located (the ctrl key, for example). With the G15, there are a bunch of G-keys between the edge and the regular keys, so for a while when I was using Photoshop, I'd subconsciously hit the G16 key instead of ctrl, because I wasn't looking at the board. That's been mostly solved now, and the keyboard and I are getting along fine.

With more Logitech-backed support for the LCD and USB 2.0 ports on the board itself, this could have been a truly perfect keyboard. Other than that, though, it is quite good. I have had no buyer's remorse, and get nothing but compliments from people who see it. For anyone (gamers, Photoshoppers, etc) that can use macros or keyboard shortcuts, the G-Keys are what truly separates this from other keyboards. If you don't need the G-Keys, there are probably better boards out there for you.

I've used this keyboard for about 6 months now. We were looking for a keyboard that could do macro functions to replace our way outdated Gateway 2000 AnyKey programmable keyboards. Gateway discontinued these long ago and we've managed to get a few more on eBay but they're very scarce. We have people doing lots of repetitive data entry for which macro functionality is a MUST.

I wasn't sure that these Logitech G15's were going to work since they're marketed as "gaming keyboards" but I bought a few for my company anyway.

Back when I was first looking for some of these, we had a hard time finding anyone with these in stock. Once I got a few, I put them on people's desks, showed them the simple steps for "recording" keystroke macros and let them have at it. They are easy to use, they send keystrokes way faster than the Gateway AnyKey boards and they seem to have tons of memory for storing macros.

These are fantastic and I couldn't have hoped for a better keyboard! I highly recommend these and if you're using another style macro keyboard and if you do lots of data entry, you will save time with these even if you aren't having problems with your current solution. There is simply no better keyboard for recording and playing back keystrokes with the easy touch of a button. The backlit display makes it so easy, you can set up the most novice computer user with one of these and they wouldn't have any problems with it.

Smart and uber cool design. Logitech hits it out of the park with this product! I am highly satisfied.

First off, I'd like to say I am even more impressed with this keyboard than when I read about it's features. It is worth every penny.

This keyboard as a ton of cool features, but most of them are only really useful for PC gamers. It has the ability to create 18 custom Macros, and on top of that there are 3 buttons above the macro buttons that allow you to switch to a different set of Macros. So all in all, it allows for 18x3 macro keys. More than enough for any game :). In addition to being able to create custom Macros, the keyboard software automatically detects "supported" games and create a specific set of Macros automatically for that game (these can be modified if you want). By supported I mean the games provide content for the LCD screen. Resetting the macro sets for games is extremely simple, requireing only that you select the macro key you want to edit and then select the function you want to do. For example, for World of WarCraft if you click on a macro key it brings up all sorts of commands, like auto run, and when you select them it automatically assigns them without you having to specifically set each key that does it.

Next, the LCD screen. When not playing a game or running a program that supports the LCD screen, there are 3 different modes. A clock/date screen, a stopwatch/timer screen, and a system monitor screen (allows you to monitor CPU and RAM use). As soon as you load a game or program that uses the LCD screen, the screen automatically switches to the screen for that game (can be changed in options menu). What is displayed on the screen depends on what data the game sends to the keyboard. Going along with the WoW example I mentioned earlier, it displays all of your characters stats like strength, stamina, critical hit percentage, etc. You can also cycle through the aforementioned screen that the keyboard has if you wish at this point.

And next, it has a few media buttons at the very top (underneath the LCD screen when it is closed). These buttons include a rotating volume control, play/paush, next, back, etc. What is really neat about these is it automatically interfaces with whatever audio program you have open (or video I would assume, but I haven't tried that). So if you load up iTunes you can control your basic music function using the keyboard. It also has support for audio programs in the LCD screen where it shows the name and artist of the song currently playing along with the "timer bar" that shows how far into the song you are.

The backlight feature is really cool as well. There are 3 brightness levels, off, low, and high. Excellent for those late night gaming sessions in the dark :). If you're like me then you don't bother turning the light on when you're gaming at night, so this is really an awesome feature.

Finally, it also has 2 built in USB ports at the very top.

My ONLY gripe is that it doesn't have the back/forward buttons for web pages. It's only a minor thing though, because I'd rather have all the cool features than a back button on my keyboard.
Some others have mentioned that the keyboard is too flat, and I do kind of have to agree. even with the kickstands down in the back it lays very flat. Doesn't really bother me though.

so, in short, BUY THIS KEYBOARD!!!!

Though I've been a hardcore gamer for some time, I never really bought into the gaming input hardware craze. I figured it was better to spend the extra bucks on video, sound, or other stuff that goes into the box as opposed to outside it. Anyway, recently I had some extra cash, so I figured 'eh, why not...'

It might have been a bad idea in hindsight, since now whenever I use any other keyboard (including the MS Natural Ergonomic I'm using now, which used to be oh-so-cool) it all feels so darn primitive. The G15 is, quite simply, a superior piece of hardware. It is worth the cost, and then some.

Pros:

Backlighting with two levels of brightness.
Programmable keys (18 x 3 possible macros).
Backlit, programmable LCD that's actually somewhat useful.
Low profile, folds up nice and flat.
Surprisingly light.
2 USB ports built-in.
Removable palm rest.
Very nice overall tactile feel and key response.

Cons:

Folding feet don't elevate the board very much.
Draws so much power that the USB ports are only really useful for things like mice (tried an mp3 player and it didn't work too well).
Wired (though personally, I prefer this).

Other notes: the macro software can be set to remember time between keypresses. The macros are assigned on a per-program basis, and can be recorded both outside via the profiler, and within the program on the fly. The G-keys are a very powerful tool for more than just gaming, even though this keyboard is marketed as gaming hardware.

There's quite a few other keyboards that are marketed as 'gaming' boards, but the programmable keys on this one really set it apart. They can take a while getting used to, but once you do it'll save a great deal of time and effort. In fact, this is true to the point that you'll end up being frustrated when using standard keyboards, since they're so much slower. All in all, the G15 has definitely improved my game, and is a genuine pleasure to use.

The Logitech G15 keyboard is like most things made by Logitech; sleek and durable. The G15 is easily both of these. All of the keys have a nice feel to them, and the entire keyboard is a good deal bigger than a standard keyboard, cutting down on accidental keypresses (this is crucial in gaming). The LED backlighting is a cool effect, but it doesn't really add to the utility of the keyboard at all. The programmable G-Keys are a big help in games with lots of multi-button combos required to do basic actions (such as World of Warcraft).
Now, on to the best and the worst part of the keyboard: The LCD Screen.
The screen is both a blessing and a curse. It's a nice, bright, fairly high-res LCD that can display information about CPU usage, the current date and time, and it also keeps track of any media you're playing through iTunes or Windows Media Player. The media function is one of the best things about the inclusion of the LCD and the controls that rest under it. No longer do you have to alt-tab out of a game to switch tracks, just hit the button on the keyboard. There's also a very hand mute button.
Now for the bad thing of the LCD screen: Beyond controling your music, it is practicaly useless (for now). Barely any games support displays for the G15 by default, and fan-made programs are few and far between. Logitech should have probably spent a little more time developing some actual gaming functions for the LCD before pushing this keyboard down the line.

All in all, it is a great keyboard, and considering the alternatives this is the best you will get. It also has a potential for growth if programmers begin to develop displays that work along with their games