I’ve been using this keyboard for about 3 months now. I use it at work and I spend my entire day staring at computer screens so I’ve had quite a few hours behind this keyboard. This is a wireless keyboard, the big selling point for this one would be the fact that you won’t have to ever buy batteries for it because it is solar. If you work in a bright office space this could be a nice feature, but did Logitech make a good product? Or should you stay away? Let’s find out…
First Impression/Build Quality
I probably should have put this in the little intro thing up there but when I got this keyboard it had previously been used and I got the complaint that keys worked when they wanted to (I’m IT HelpDesk). The first thing I notice when I get the keyboard is how much smaller it is than the MK710, if that thing is a Cadillac this is a Mini Cooper. It is a very thin and fairly compact keyboard. I did notice some lint/dust on the bottom side of the plastic that is covering the right solar panel, which made me think there might be some build quality issues. I haven’t noticed anything to make me think this thing is gonna fall apart yet.
Layout and the Logitech App
The layout is pretty much standard, so nothing huge to note. It is a full size keyboard so it does have a 10-key and the directional arrows are good size. At the very top is where you will find the solar panels and on the right there is a button that will flash a light next to either a happy or sad face to tell you how much charge there is in the built in batteries. Just to the right of that is the on/off switch. The ‘F’ keys double as media controls and other shortcuts, and so far they work flawlessly. With the app you can assign different shortcuts to these and even reverse the ‘FN’ function so you can make the media keys the default, not the ‘F’ keys. A couple things I like I’ve assigned the F5 key (which has a music icon) to open Spotify and F3 to open a Command Prompt that makes my life even just a little bit easier. The play/pause and track skip buttons do work very well in Spotify, so that is nice too. There is an add on app specifically for this keyboard that will tell you how much light your keyboard is getting and how happy your batteries are. It seems to work as advertised. Logitech claims 3 months of battery life in total darkness. I don’t know if I will ever even be able to test this, but if I do I will update this review.
Typing
This is the part that gets fun. Comparing this to the MK710 is like night and day. I liked the 710 while I used it but the keys were really mushy. Some people like that and some people, like myself, enjoy more of a tactile feedback. This isn’t a mechanical keyboard by any means but there is a very nice tactile feedback when typing on this keyboard. That is actually what made me switch from the 710. I can type all day on this thing and get very little fatigue. If I did have a complaint about the keyboard it would be that the keys are a bit slippery. It’s not excessive by any means but it is there.
Complaints
Nothing is perfect right? This keyboard is no different. First and foremost, there is no backlighting. That isn’t a huge problem for me just because I use mine in an office setting where the lights are always on. If this was something I used at home, there is a possibility that would be a deal breaker. The other thing is there’s no wrist rest. That’s not something I would miss had I not had it on my previous keyboard, but I did and I do.
Conclusion
When I started this review I knew I would 100% recommend this keyboard. Now that I’m done, I’m torn. Let’s do it this way, if you are going to use it in an office type setting where you won’t be using it in the dark I definitely recommend this keyboard. If you were wanting to use this in a home setting and you are like myself and get most of your stuff done at night, I simply can’t recommend it just due to the fact that there is no backlighting. If Logitech made a model identical to this one but with backlighting, recommending this keyboard would be easy.
Comments
Post a Comment