Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard review

To expand on the LCD's usefulness, Logitech ships the G15 with free development software. Its hope is that people will play with the software and develop cool and useful LCD mini apps. Two sites, G15 Mods and Logitech G15 Forums have a total of 25 apps between their official download sections, but most of those apps, Net speed monitors, mail notifiers, and so on, are more for general use than specifically gaming oriented. Each site has a forum where you can find more downloads (there's also a G15 forum thread over on HardOCP), but in general, the G15 modding community hasn't produced as much content as, say, that of Half-Life 2's.

Logitech has since corrected the problem, but the first batch of G15s had wear-prone paint on the keys, as evidenced by our missing letter A.

But LCD or not, the G15 is still a keyboard designed for gaming. Of course, key design is tough to quantify. We found the keys a bit clunky--we like a thinner design, like that of the BenQ X120 X-Structure Internet Keyboard. Gamers especially will appreciate the cool blue LED that backlights the keys. This means it's easy to see what's what during a game session in a darkened room. That is, of course, assuming you have room enough on your desktop. The G15 measures 21.5 inches wide by 10 inches deep (with the LCD fully open). By way of comparison, Dell's current default keyboard measures 17.5 inches wide by 6.25 inches deep. It reminds us of the whale-tail spoiler on old Porches--which is to say, big. When the G15 first shipped, users found that the coating on the keys would wear, as happened to our A key (pictured). Logitech has since changed the type of paint it uses for the keys, which it claims is more resilient.