Logitech G15 Keyboard (Black)

Logitech G15 Keyboard (Black)

Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard Box View

Good intel and proper gear are the keys to victory. With the Logitech G15 keyboard, you get both. Now you can easily discover on which server your friends are playing Battlefield 2142, be notified when your World of Warcraft battleground becomes available and know exactly who's talking in Ventrilo with the Logitech G15 keyboard's exclusive GamePanel LCD. You can also create useful macros on the fly that play back with a single press of one of the six G keys. As every key features illuminated characters, with three levels of brightness, you can keep playing late into the night.

Editorial Reviews
From the Manufacturer
Good intel and the proper gear are the keys to victory, even in gaming. The Logitech® G15 keyboard keeps you informed and outfitted to win.

With the Logitech-exclusive GamePanel™ LCD, you can easily find out what server your friends are using to play Battlefield 2142™, or receive notification when your World of Warcraft® battleground becomes available. You can even identify who’s speaking in Ventrilo™. Create useful macros on the fly and play them back with a single press of a G-key. Backlighted keyboard allows you to play late into the night.

The Logitech® G15 gives you a winning advantage, and everyone knows it’s more fun when you win.

High-visibility GamePanel™ LCD: Displays game stats and other important system information.

Backlit keyboard: Choose from three levels of brightness. Locate keys easily in both bright and low-light conditions.

Intelligent cable management: Keep mouse, headset, and other cords out of the way by routing them through channels on the underside of the keyboard.

Six programmable G-keys: Perform single keystrokes or complex macros with six fully programmable G-keys. Create macros on the fly, without having to pause the action.

Instant media access: Use the convenient one-touch controls for volume and media playback.

Detachable palmrest: Can be used with or without palmrest, depending upon user's preference

You might also be Interested of buying a good gaming mouse like this one

Microsoft SideWinder Gaming Mouse...

System Requirements

Windows® XP, Windows Vista™
256 MB RAM
20 MB available hard disk space
USB port
CD-ROM drive

Package Contents

Logitech® G15 Keyboard
Palm rest
Software CD
Installation Guide
1-year limited hardware warranty

The first thing that strikes you in this device is the large LCD display at the keyboard’s back. Then, there are three blocks of buttons to the left of the keyboard’s mainland that do not look like typical multimedia buttons; they are 18 in total and are numbered from G1 through G18. And finally, the keys begin to glow with a mild blue light on your connecting the keyboard to the PC. A technically advanced user will refuse to be shocked at all that, however, because this could have been seen before. The diNovo keyboard had an LCD display, too, and there are additional buttons on almost each keyboard priced higher than $5. And the highlighting is nothing really new, either. Well, that’s true, but it is in the G15 that all these things are implemented perfectly, that’s why I’m talking about a qualitative difference from the competitors – it is not just an additional dozen of buttons and a useless screen to show the room temperature. I’ll discuss all that below in more detail. Right now let’s take a look at the G15 in general.

This is BTC 6300CL, a keyboard of the notebook variety (its low keys have a small movement range) with blue highlighting. The technical solution is simple: the keys are made of translucent plastic and there is a highlight module under them and under the transparent sheets with interconnects.

Alas, this doesn’t look good in practice. First, the highlight area is large so despite the low brightness of highlighting the keyboard acts like a night-lamp illuminating the whole room in darkness. This bright spot becomes rather annoying at work, distracting your eyes from the monitor.

Second, the 6300CL doesn’t serve its primary purpose well, which is to make the keyboard symbols visible even in darkness. The thinner a layer of plastic is, the less resistance to light it provides, making the highlighting look brighter. As a result, it’s not the keys but the spaces between them that are the brightest of all with this keyboard. The edges of the keys are bright, too, whereas the center of each key – where the symbol is painted – is the dimmest spot.

Removing one of the keys we can see that the highlight module is in fact located under the keyboard, just as it is in the 6300CL, but the case of the G15 is made of opaque plastic, so the spaces between the keys do not shine. Thus, it’s only the hole the stalk of the key is inserted in that is shining.

The photograph above shows one of the keyboard’s keys (by the way, taking a key off is as easy as taking hold of its cap and pushing it a little; this may come in handy when you need to take out a crumble or a paper clip or something that has fallen in between the keys). As you can see, the key is made of translucent plastic covered with an opaque black paint from above. Besides its main function, the stalk of the key performs the one of a light pipe.

This solution has two drawbacks, one actual and one potential. The actual drawback is that not the entire area of a key is highlighted, but only its part that is right above the light-conducting stalk. As a result, only some letters of a caption are highlighted even on the English-language version of the keyboard (e.g. the last letter doesn’t shine in the “Prt Scr” caption). On localized versions of the keyboard it’s only the Latin alphabet that is highlighted as can be seen in the photographs above.

The potential drawback is that the paint cannot last infinitely. Take any keyboard that has been exploited heavily for a few years – its most frequently used buttons are going to be wiped out. No one knows how the keys of the G15 will look after a few years’ use.

By the way, the first batch of keyboards that hit the shops had an unstable paint. The symbols would get wiped out after a few weeks of active use. Logitech acknowledged the defect and replaced the paint with a more durable one. The owners of defective samples could have their keyboard replaced by the warranty. Users report that Logitech sent them new keyboards even without asking to return the defective sample.

I personally haven’t yet noticed the paint getting wiped out on my G15 during the two months of my using it (the photographs above show my sample of the keyboard, so you can check it out by yourself). Of course, two months is not a long time for a keyboard, yet I am sure that the unstable paint was only a defect of the first production batches. This drawback is potential, and may not show up at all in the foreseeable future.

As I wrote above, the keyboard has a special button to adjust the highlight brightness. The button doesn’t depend on the G15 driver and allows switching between three levels: disabled, half brightness and full brightness. I have personally used the full brightness setting for work and half brightness for games and for watching movies.

LCD Display
The LCD screen is one of the most remarkable features of the G15, yet it is not unique. Such screens first appeared on the numeric pad of Logitech’s diNovo keyboards. They used to display the information from the calculator and the thermometer built into the keyboard. Today, the Cordless Desktop MX 5000 Laser is being produced along with the G15 and is equipped with a display, too. It is implemented differently than in the G15, yet the overall concept is the same.

Speaking in technical terms, the G15 keyboard has a monochrome passive-matrix LCD panel with a resolution of 160x43 pixels and dimensions of 89x24mm. The panel has a refresh rate of about 30 frames per second, but it is virtually impossible to display moving objects on it due to its very high response time. The viewing angles are good from below and sides, but when you are looking at the screen from above, the image gets inverted starting from an angle of about 45 degrees. This is not a problem, though, as you can adjust the tilt of the screen in a wide range.

The screen has white backlighting, its brightness is regulated with the same button as the keyboard brightness. The backlighting is uniform, except for a brighter band along the right edge of the screen.

You could use the diNovo’s calculator without even turning the PC on, but this screen is absolutely useless without an installed driver. It can do nothing on its own save for displaying the manufacturer’s name. Fortunately, this lasts only until the G15 driver with appropriate plugins is loaded up. After that, the keyboard offers to choose from six standard plugins:

Media Display shows media player information about the reproduced audio track; this feature currently supports iTunes, MediaLife, MusicMatch, RealPlayer, Sonique, Winamp and Windows Media Player.

• LCD Countdown Timer is a stop-watch and a countdown timer. You can start it up with the button under the LCD screen, but the initial time for the countdown timer can only be set up from the PC.
• LCD POP3 Monitor shows the status of your mailbox
• LCD Clock shows a clock, calendar, and (if desired) the number of unread letters.

Performance Monitor shows CPU load and memory usage information
Keyboard Profiler shows tips on entering new macros (I’ll talk about them below)
You interact with the plugins using the four elongated buttons under the screen. The round button on the left of them is for switching between the plugins. The control buttons do not have certain fixed functions. Their function depends on the currently selected plugin and is indicated by icons that appear on the screen above them (as a matter of fact, these buttons are only used with the Countdown Timer among the six standard plugins – to begin and stop the counting of time).

Programmable Keys
We’ve all got used to have a lot of additional buttons on our keyboards, to launch the Web browser or e-mail client, to control the sound volume, etc. Today, no keyboard comes without them, except for the cheapest models. The G15 is not an exception and I’ve already described the media player controls and the volume adjustment wheel at the beginning of the review. This may seem scanty (some other keyboards offer whole rows of additional buttons), but the G15 boasts one unique feature. It has eighteen programmable G buttons placed in three blocks on the left of the main field. You may wonder what’s so unusual about them if any keyboard’s additional buttons can be programmed to some extent. With the G15, these buttons are meant to be programmed by the user and offer very broad opportunities.

Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #619 in Consumer Electronics
Color: Black
Brand: Logitech
Model: 920-000379
Original language: English
Dimensions: 1.94" h x 8.81" w x 20.25" l, 6.00 pounds

Features
Connectivity - USB
Cable Type - USB
Warranty - 1 year warranty
-- Illuminated characters: Choose from three levels of brightness. Locate keys easily in both bright and low-light conditions.
-- Six programmable G-keys: Perform single keystrokes or complex macros with six fully programmable G-keys. Create macros on the fly, without having to pause the action.

Verticle View

Logitech G15 Keyboard (Black)