Last month, Logitech sent over a brand new, fairly expensive mouse and keyboard combination that the company is marketing to gamers. If purchased together, at full MSRP, the G19s and G602 (review here) would cost the average consumer a whopping $280. And that's before tax and/or shipping. But is the recently-refreshed combination really worth all that cash?
The Logitech G19s is easily the most feature-packed keyboard that's ever entered my home, thanks to its built-in LCD screen and programmable macro buttons; however, the average customer isn’t likely to find a convincing reason to spend $200 for Logitech's latest refresh of the G19s gaming keyboard.
That’s not to say that the device isn’t equipped with its fair share of bells and whistles but, while the G19s certainly isn’t running low on style or panache, it feels like Logitech skipped out on pretty much every major feature I’d expect to see in a keyboard with such a steep price.
Where are the mechanical switches? Why would I want powered-USB ports, as opposed to a wireless device, when the G19s doesn’t even include the headphone jack needed to plug in a headset? And why does the keyboard rely on an application that slows down my CPU boot and shutdown times?
Enough with the rhetorical questions, though. Let’s dig into the Logitech G19s bit-by-bit and see what consumers should expect from a brand new unit, what we liked about the company’s latest gaming keyboard and the various reasons why we still aren’t quite sold on the Logitech G19s.
Logitech G19s Gaming Keyboard – Basic Features
Just as you might expect, the Logitech G19s has all the usual buttons you'd expect to find on a QWERTY, Windows-ready keyboard. The device also includes the usual suite of media keys, plus a rolling input for volume control , along with a handful of buttons mean to select/toggle various features and functions of the Logitech G19s.
Each input on the keyboard is coated in a UV-protective coating, to keep the keys from fading after a few weeks/months of heavy usage, and the folks at Logitech thoughtfully decided to make both the arrow and WASD keys a lighter shade of gray. It may not seem like much but, between those and the LCD backlighting behind every key, you shouldn't ever really have an issue getting your hands lined up properly on the G19s.
The Logitech G19s also features a full-color LCD panel built directly into the device, which can be used to display everything from game stats to the headlines from your favorite RSS feeds. It can even play your favorite YouTube videos, provided they aren’t locked to the browser; however, the frame rate does take a pretty significant dive.
Less exciting features include a pair of powered USB ports can be found on the upper-edge of the keyboard and molding on the bottom of the G19s that is intended to help you manage the wires from your headphones and/or mouse. Assuming you haven't spent close to a $100 on the G602 wireless gaming mouse that Logitech is hoping consumers will pair with the G19s and/or several hundred dollars on one of the many wireless gaming headsets currently available to PC gamers.
Logitech G19s Gaming Keyboard – What We Liked
While I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for the distinctive clicking sound produced by many of the world’s top mechanical keyboards, I’ll admit to being pleasantly surprised by just how little noise the G19s has created since showing up at my apartment last month. Not pleased enough to overlook the lack of mechanical switches under the keys, but we'll dive into that later.
The keyboard’s UV coated keys may take a bit more force to register an input but they also feel like they’ll continue to hold up under the hours and hours of daily usage that they’ve seen in the last few weeks. The backlit keys also make it easy to see what I’m doing, regardless of the current light level in my home office.
As someone with some relatively sizable hands, and a tendency to get a bit clumsy when playing late-night Dota matches, I appreciated having a hardwired switch that enables/disables the Windows key on the G19s. Accidental minimizations aren’t necessarily an everyday issue for me but they’re just frequent enough for the switch to be one of my favorite features.
The programmable keys that line the left side of the keyboard are also handy for certain games and other tasks; especially if you’re playing an MMO or other game where macro inputs are both more efficient and (sometimes) the difference between life and death/rage quits. I also find them surprisingly useful in my day-to-day life, though I suppose not everyone is slapping the same footer paragraph onto a handful of new articles each business day.
Best of all, each of the twelve keys can be programmed three times, toggled via a set of keys in the upper-left corner of the device, and the ability to alter the backlight behind your keys makes it easy to remember which macro configuration is currently enabled. Advanced coders will also be happy to know an emulator for the Logitech G19s' built-in LCD screen comes bundled with the software, making it a bit easier to program and test your own applets for the device.
Logitech G19s Gaming Keyboard – What We Didn’t Like
Two hundred dollars.
That’s how much Logitech wants customers to pay for the Logitech G19s. Two hundred dollars for a new keyboard that, while certainly pleasing to the eye, seems to value outward appearance more than usefulness or general functionality. I mean, it doesn’t even include mechanical inputs.
There are at least two different Das keyboards for significantly less, and I bet the Control and Alt buttons on those don't start to wear out after just one month's worth of usage. I wish I could say the same for the Logitech G19s.
I think it’s also worth pointing out that just about everything that currently sets the G19s apart from other keyboards are features that require you to take your eyes off your monitor. I don’t know about you guys, but taking my eyes off my screen is the last thing I want to do in the middle of a game; much less reflex-focused games like Call of Duty, Dota 2 or League of Legends.
Even the handful of features in the Logitech G19s that don’t require you to break your gaze aren’t implemented particularly well.
While the keyboard’s YouTube applet quickly became a personal favorite – if only because it gave me a chance to say, “Hey, look what this thing can do…” whenever friends come over – there’s no discernible way to alter the button combination that queues the videos. It’s an all-or-nothing setting that either plays any/every YouTube URL that hits your clipboard, or the keyboard ignores any/all attempts to push video to the G19s’ 2-inch screen.
And don't even get me started on how ridiculous of an idea it was to include a movie-viewing applet on the device. I don't have anything against watching a movie or TV show while gaming, but I see little point in watching something unfolding slowly enough to look like a PowerPoint presentation of itself.
Logitech G19s Gaming Keyboard Review – Final Verdict
The Logitech G19s is great but, at the end of the day, I just cannot envision spending two hundred dollars on it. Then again, I don’t play games for a living – well, at least not competitively --so it’s always possible that I just don’t understand why a particular feature of the G19s makes the device worth its current price. I’ll also admit to being a bit of a penny-pincher when building/outfitting my computers.
Watching Curren$y videos on the keyboard’s diminutive LCD screen is entertaining once or twice, but not something I’d ever do outside of the rare occasions when I can show the feature to a friend that’s yet to see the new toy on my desk. The same can be said for just about every other applet currently available for the G19s.
Then again, that’s sort of the point of these premium keyboards, isn’t it?
I mean, nobody really needs anything more than the $10-$20 keyboard/mouse combo that used to come standard with any new computer, but the whole idea is that it’s fun to pack a few extra features into an otherwise boring device that many of us use on a daily basis.
So, from that perspective, the G19s succeeds in just about every way you could hope for. It’s flashy, packed with over-the-top functionality and just enough practical application for a certain crowd to justify the purchase. But the lack of mechanical switches is just too big an oversight for me to ignore, and I suspect I’m not alone.
The Logitech G19s isn’t a bad keyboard; it just needs a bit more tweaking to justify its price tag.
Recommendation – Wait For A Price Drop
DISCLAIMER: As mentioned at the top of this post, the Logitech G19s review you just read is based on time spent with a keyboard provided to me (free-of-charge) by a representative of the popular peripheral manufacturer; however, Logitech did not retain any say in the contents of this review.
Have you had a chance to spend any time with the latest iteration of the Logitech G19s? Disagree with our analysis of the popular peripheral manufacturer’s latest premium gaming keyboard? Think you’ve discovered something (like a new applet) that would change our mind about the Logitech G19s?
Let us know in the comments section!
