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Logitech G19 Gaming Keyboard Review June 01, 2009 Tom YodaBlues Colarusso |
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Summary: Sporting a larger, higher resolution color LCD, configurable backlit keys, and reconfigured G-keys, Logitech's G19 offers a host of improvements over its predecessor, the G15. But is it worthy of its lofty price tag? Decide for yourself in our review!
 Logitech G19 Keyboard Review | Page:: ( 1 / 5 ) |
Peripherals designed explicitly for gaming have a pretty long history in the technology sector, going all the way back to the first Razer mouse released in 1999. Since then, many manufacturers have begun developing mice, WASD pads, and even keyboards designed with gamers in mind. Only one company however, has actually designed an LCD into the keyboard, the most common of input devices.
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Logitech's G15 was released back in 2006 and has slowly but surely built up support not only in big-name releases like World of Warcraft and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, but also in more functional applications like Ventrilo and Everest. The G15 remains popular amongst enthusiasts as well, thanks to 3rd party applications like LCDStudio which allow you to easily make your own visual plug-ins.
Logitech is prepping to release their newest gaming keyboard, the G19, and have made some interesting improvements to the G15 formula. Let's take a quick look at some of the features of the G19 before we delve a little deeper into what sets this apart from its older sibling.
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Features
The G19 shares many similarities with its predecessor, both in design and function. The keys are half-height, soft touch keys, so noise is kept to a minimum when typing or playing games. In fact, the feel of the G19 is almost exactly the same as the G15. One of the biggest issues we had with the G15 when it was first released, was the increased width due to the 18 'G' macro keys. Logitech has eliminated a row of keys and tightened up the layout a bit, in an effort to allow the G19 to fit into most keyboard trays.
The keys on the G19 feature backlighting similar to the G15, although Logitech has designed in a feature that lets you customize the color. Colors are adjustable in the software and are dependent upon the profile and macro mode you have active. As a nice bonus, you aren't limited in what color you
want to set the backlight too. While there are predefined colors, Logitech has included a color wheel so users can designate any specific shade they are looking for. You could potentially have a color for every game you own, giving you instant recognition of what profile is active at the current time.
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| Features con’t | Page:: ( 2 / 5 ) |
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The biggest change on the G19 is the 320x240 color LCD situated on a handy swivel in the center of the keyboard. Logitech has included some interesting applications with the software that lets you see just how good the LCD is. They include an RSS reader, CPU/Memory utilization monitor, picture viewer, movie viewer, email notification, and even a YouTube application that lets you browse a simplified version of the site. Audio is played through your desktop speakers.
Colors and visuals are surprisingly clear and crisp on the LCD and the addition of color certainly sets it apart from the monochrome display featured on the G15. However, when you combine the color LCD with the customization of the keys' backlight, the G19 ends up looking like something you would see on Pimp My Keyboard.
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| Software | Page:: ( 3 / 5 ) |
The G19 uses Logitech’s LCD Manager software to control any applications for the display, while their Game Profiler software is where you can customize macros and functions. Let’s take a look at the LCD software and included plug-ins.
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Plug-ins can be set to rotate automatically as long as the corresponding application is active, or if a change is detected using Logitech’s proprietary Klever-Vu software. Users can also quick swap between applications on the keyboard by pushing a button on the G19 itself.
The default plug-ins included with the G19 far surpasses what was included on their previous LCD keyboards. Logitech has built-in support for email notification, a nice performance monitor, RSS reader, clock, as well as a movie viewer and even a YouTube plug-in. While some of the usefulness of a few of these applications can be questioned, you can become quickly reliant on others just as easily. The performance monitor is great for tracking overall system utilization, while the media viewer makes it quite easy to keep track of what tunes are playing during a gaming session.
The big seller on the G19 however isn’t Logitech’s support, but rather that of 3rd party software and games. When the G15 launched, it took at least a year for native support to find its way to the keyboard, nullifying the benefits of the LCD. Thankfully, the G19 is able to output the same display, meaning that if your favorite application or game already supports a G15 LCD, it will also support a G19.
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Games such as World of Warcraft, F.E.A.R. 2, and Age of Conan added LCD support a while back and the G19 functions perfectly with them. Ventrilo also makes use of the LCD, as does Everest, making the display function as an in-game temperature display for all your major components.
While we’re happy the G19 won’t languish due to lack of native support from software developers, the problem is that most of the support is built around the G15. This means most of the images displayed on the G19 are monochrome and scaled down to 160x43. Also, some of the information can be either useless or redundant. Quite a few shooters, like F.E.A.R. 2, just display an ammo and armor counter. We understand we can’t fault Logitech for this issue, but we do hope developers update their applications to make better use of the higher resolution and full color capabilities of the display.
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The game profiler software allows you to pre-program macros and setup profiles that become active if an executable is detected. The G19 also retains the ability to record macros on the fly by pushing the ‘MR’ button the keyboard. This puts the G19 into macro recording mode and the LCD displays pertinent information until the ‘MR’ button is pushed again.
The profiling software also allows you to set the color of the backlight based on which macro mode button is active. This gives you 36 possible macros per game profile, more than enough for a majority of your games. The ability to identify each macro mode by color, and knowing which game profile is active based on what you are playing, ensures that you can easily hit the proper macro for the situation you are in.
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| Ballistics Report | Page:: ( 4 / 5 ) |
Pros
Full Color LCD: The big, beautiful LCD is a huge improvement over the monochrome display on the G15. Videos look pretty darn good, as do images and web pages rendered in the RSS reader.
Some of the usefulness of the built-in applications can be questionable, such as the YouTube plug-in and the movie viewer. But others, like the media display and performance monitor can be extremely useful. 3rd party add-ons increase the functionality of the LCD as well, such as Ventrilo and Everest which are great for keeping track of both raiding parties and system temperatures.
Customizable Color and G-Keys: The capability to set the background color is a neat touch, as is the ability to program macros using either the game profiling software or on the fly. While some may lament the loss of 6 G-keys from the first G15, having 36 macros across 3 different modes means you still have quite a bit of options for programming common actions in most of your games.
Cons
Cost: The biggest drawback to the G19 is the price at $199. That’s some serious cash to be had for what is essentially just a keyboard. For that kind of money, you can easily get a decent GPU upgrade, such as an ATI 4870 or nVidia 260. In the current economic climate, we imagine there won’t be too many people willing to drop that kind of cash on something unless it provides a real tangible benefit.
Monochrome Support: While the G19 launches with more applications supporting it natively than the G15, most of the support is designed around the monochrome display featured on the latter. With the capability to display images and video in such beautiful color and clarity, we hope developers will quickly make use of the more powerful LCD on the G19.
| Final Verdict | Page:: ( 5 / 5 ) |