Top positive review
4.0 out of 5 starsIllusion or fact
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 2, 2022
I’m a author, graphic artist, photo editor and generally a person who uses a desktop computer keyboard a lot, much more than average. I am not a gamer, however I have bought several gamer keyboards in the past thinking the mechanical keys may give me a better feel and longer longevity so I can say this model is not a true gamer keyboard.
THE INEVITABLE COMPARISON
As a power user of keyboards I literally wear them out. I have owned so many brands and models I’ve lost count. Most range from bad to terrible. I am not particularly fond of Logitech as a company, I don’t believe they have a very good reputation for customer service and I think most people who have owned their products will agree that their products don’t last as long as they should. But yet, for a good solid product that feels good to human hands they are probably the only game in town these days. So I keep buying their mice and keyboards, over and over again.
Their K740 has often been called the gold standard, it is nearly perfect, or at least was. For a while it was being sold as a redesigned model with chicklet keys. I don’t think that went over so well and it seems to have been discontinued. After my fourth K740 started giving me troubles, and the availability of used ones drying up, I decided to try this one. From the photos it looks almost identical, and it seems to have real full-dimensional key - not chiclets. In fact, at least in the photos, the keys seemed to have more of the shape of the legendary IBM Selectric than the flatter-topped keys of the K740.
ILLUSION OR FACT - THE COMPARISON
Here is my direct comparison between the original design of one of the best keyboards ever made and this one which I bought at about forty-five bucks. The first impression is that it is solid, heavy and seems to be very substantial for the price. The USB cord is massive, I think just for effect, but I don’t think it translates well into usability. My cord needs to snake around several things on my desk, impossible with this very stiff cord, so that changes how I like to have my keyboard and desktop arranged. But I can live with that. How it looks is fine but the real proof is when I sit down and start to type. I want my keyboard to melt away when I use it, in other words I don’t want to think about it, I just want it to be a tool that translates the movement of my fingers into words on the screen. In comparison this model does indeed have a nice feel, the keys seem to be where they should be and the key travel is just about right to give the user a positive tactile feedback. But on the downside, whereas the K740 is nearly silent in operation this model has a noticeable key click sound that doesn’t seem to be consistent from one key to another. It’s a subtle difference but a fast touch typist might think the key feedback is slightly less than optimal. That is fully a user preference though, either you’re going to like or not. I am getting used to it but I do prefer the silent keystroke of the older model.
One immediate thing you will notice is the lighting. The older model has pure white laser etched lighting that is soft, subtle and very useful for typing in low light conditions. It’s about as good as it gets. The Prodigy on the other hand is meant to dazzle with multi-color zones, something gamers like. The lighting is slightly dimmer. On the plus side is that the colors are programmable and there is almost no light leak between the keys. There is one dedicated button to turn the illumination on and off.
THINGS YOU MIGHT WANT TO KNOW
I’ll run through a few first impressions: one is that the palm rest is hard plastic as is the rest of the body of the unit, it is not padded or non-slip like the K740. This model has four bright white status lights for caps lock, num lock, etc. They are within your line of vision and you will either like that or not. I am so used to the K760’s on-screen display I think I prefer it to status lights. The labels next to the lights are extremely tiny and the same color as the rest of the plastic - in other words you have to memorize the position of each to be useful. The media keys are very well thought out, they are all in the far corner on the upper right and each key has a dedicated function. I rarely use media keys but I think I will start using them now, I like this design very much.
NOT FACT
Here are a few things that separate reality from hype. One is that the product you get is not what they picture in their ad. That’s inexcusable, they’ve shipped enough of this model that they could have corrected their misrepresentation by now. The biggest difference are in the size and shape of the enter and backspace keys - which to someone who uses a keyboard many hours a day can be a very big deal. The other this, again inexcusable, is that you can’t use the standard Logitech SetPoint keyboard app, you need to download a different one for this model.
YES OR NO
How a keyboard feels is the most important thing it does and you can read a thousand reviews and every one of them will be an opinion - no one can decide for you if it will feel good to you, the only way you will know is to buy it, try it, and keep it if you like it, otherwise send it back. My rating is conditional - it is positive considering you can’t get a real K740 anymore - the replacement is nowhere near in the same league as the original, and it still costs way too much. You also no longer have a ready source of reconditioned ones. So you’re stuck with this model if you want something good. My bottom line is that it’s quite good and I’ll probably get used it its little quirks, I would like it better if it was less noisy. And I can’t five points to any product that shows one thing and sells you something else.
