User is able to select the desired light intensity either with a keyboard speed button or via profiler. For the LCD there is also a possibility to change the contrast via the software.

MR button lights up only after it has been pressed once. Soft buttons are not lighted at all. This is too bad as these buttons should be as easy to use in the dark as the rest of the keyboard. At least I can't see any reason why they were left out.

So there you have it; the latest gaming keyboard on Logitech's arsenal. I believe that many gamers will find this keyboard very usable. How much the G15 will improve the scores or enhance the overall gaming experience will depends on the games that the gamer is playing. G keys may not bring that much extra to Freecell players but for example role playing games and some 3D shooters can get a lot better when experienced with G15.

I personally found the programmable LCD very interesting. As I do a lot of coding both at work and on my free time, it was fun to fire up the Visual Studio and see what can be done with the screen. It should be no problem to write different kinds of wrappers and pluging so that gamers can get statistics from the game they are playing or that one could manage his/hers multimedia library with the screen and the soft buttons. Only time will tell how popular the keyboard will become and how strong software support we will have. Perhaps game houses will not include the support for this LCD to their games just yet but if Logitech can manage to keep the concept alive and other manufacturers join the party, anything can happen. Logitech does have couple of other keyboard/desktop models out that does have a LCD screen on them so it seems that they mean business.

I decided to give the Editor's Choice Award for G15 because of its innovative new features; Namely the LCD screen and the G keys. When typing the G15 doesn't feel that much different from tons of older models but that is not a bad thing. Every time that you go out and buy a new keyboard it takes time to get used to. As the feel of the keys does not differ that much from other models of keyboards and the key layout is regular qwerty style, user feels right at home from the start.

Update 16.12.2005

I had some request from our readers to check couple of more specific issues about the keyboard and the software package. As for the keyboard; in our tests it supported six (6) simultaneous keys pressed at once. With seven or more keys the system would not register the keypresses. As for the software; SDK is Windows only. No Linux support included.

Additional Information

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