Review: Logitech G15 keyboard (new and old)

Avast ye, scallywags, and welcome to a new review.

Today I'll be reviewing the Logitech G15 keyboards, both the new one and the old one.
First, let's start with a solo review on the old one, which I got first.

The old one, with a cool blue backlight, had a pretty good feel when typing. Nothing too special, though. It also had 18 macro keys, which I didn't use. If I can't beat the game without macros, I can't beat the game.

The most peculiar thing about this keyboard, however, was that it introduced a cool LCD screen on top of it. It allows one to see information about the current game(ammo, health etc.). I didn't use that, however. Instead, I used it to display the information about my media player. That way, I could see what songs are playing before they even had the chance to make a sound(by scrolling through songs, for example). That is very useful in-game. You could also set it to a clock, but that application always froze with me, so it's unreliable. I can remember playing games 'til 02:00 in a weekday, simply because the LCD clock froze at around 22:30 -_-


Now on to the new G15, with a few changes to the old G15.

The new G15 had a nice warm orange backlight, with which I personally could concentrate much better than with the cool blue one. The LCD screen got a resolution improvement, but it runs the same apps as the old one, fortunately. It only had 6 macro buttons, however. Win for me, though, because I didn't rely on the stupid things anyway. Only saves space this way :)

The greatest change about the new G15 was that it has a pretty damn good feeling when typing. Less clicks, keys have a bit less space between them so that I don't scrape my fingertips at a side. It's just much better than the old one.


So there you have it. The only reason that I'm currently using a microsoft keyboard over my new G15 is because the G15 I bought had a europian layout -_- And let me tell you, that layout is dead annoying as a programmer.


My ratings:

Old one(with blue backlight)
Functionality: 9/10
Typing: 6/10
Comfort: 7/10
Overall: 7.3/10

New one(with orange backlight)
Functionality: 9/10
Typing: 8/10
Comfort: 7/10
Overall: 8/10


Over and out.



Edit: forgot to add a few pics.

Hardware Review: Logitech G9

Right, so my first review will be about the Logitech G9. A wonderful mouse, in my honest opinion.

So here's the deal: I don't have a picture from my own, since I kinda don't have a camera. But don't fret, 'cause here is how it looks.

First of all, it's pretty damn accurate. It's very quickly moveable if you leave the weights out, but if you don't want the cable to constantly pull the mouse in a random direction, the weights will make the mouse stay in place, which is very, very nice.

Buttons 4 and 5(on the side of the mouse) are a pain to access the first few tries, but once you get the hang of it, you wish every mouse had these kind of side buttons.

The scrollwheel is very nicely done. I remember with my G5 that my mousewheel was inaccurate, which caused me to constantly swap weapons in first person shooters, and swap abilities in Diablo 2, while all I did was put my finger on it. But with the G9, it's damn accurate! Huzzah for that! You can change the modi of the scrollwheel at the bottom of the mouse, from clicks to "oh no, I can't stop my mousewheel!". Always set it up for the clicks.

The changeable covers are a pretty nice feature, too. I use one cover to rest my whole hand on the mouse, for first person shooters, and one cover to use precision, for strategy games etc. It's badass!

And now, on to the software, called Setpoint. I don't have a picture of it at the moment, 'cause I'm not home while I'm writing this :P

But long story short: it's pretty damn useful. And short story long:

One of the options is to pimp your mouse, by changing the light color from the DPI LED. Not that that's entirely useful. But it gets better. 'Cause you see, since Windows XP SP2, windows uses a very annoying mouse acceleration, which causes it to go in straight lines even if you move the mouse slightly off-straight. It can be useful for some things, like drawing a straight line, but I don't like it. Setpoint has an option to still have the acceleration effect, but without the stupid Windows 'straightline-annoyance'.

Of course, you can set options like DPI levels and macro's too. I don't use macro's, though. If I can't beat the game without macro's, I can't beat the game.

My ratings for this mouse are as follows:

Performance: 8/10

Comfort: 9/10

Buttons/Wheel: 9/10

Overall: 8.7/10

Over and out.