Logitech G19 Keyboard Review: Does it Merit the $200 Price Bump?

The Logitech G19 Keyboard is basically a G15 with a color LCD screen and a slightly changed appearance. It hardly merits 200 extra dollars, especially with the lack of supported software for the new LCD screen.

The Logitech G19 Keyboard's LCD screen still has a secondary display so you can keep up with the time, your email, etc. As we mentioned, though, its output is now full color, plus the screen is larger- 320x240. A clock, an RSS reader, a photo and video player, and a system performance monitor are just a few of the Logitech G19 Keyboard's eleven new applications, all of which have options for changing source folders and making other adjustments onscreen.

Besides the LCD, few improvements have been made since the G15. The Logitech G19 Keyboard has the same crisp keystrokes, 12 "G" keys, each of which can be customized three different ways, on-the-fly macro recording, and a switch to disable the "Windows" key (to keep you from accidently switching to your desktop while you're playing a game). However, the keyboard now recognizes five key presses at once, and has two powered USB 2.0 jacks (the G15 had USB 1.1).

You now have the ability to run more repetitive commands, and USB data transfer is faster. The Logitech G19 Keyboard also sports a drum-style volume control, over which are the media play controls. It still ties into iTunes, Windows Media Center, and some other media software applications. You can now choose from 16 million colors for your backlit keyboard, but no preset colors are offered on the Logitech G19 Keyboard. More intuitiveness would be desirable, as well as consolidation of all configuration options into a single application.

Four different gaming applications, including Ventrilo, a third-party voice chat software preferred by many PC gamers, and forty-six games are supported by the Logitech G19 Keyboard. Most of the games, however, are outdated, and the Logitech G19 Keyboard's LCD screen doesn't display all of the information that might be found necessary during a game. It mostly just shows things like ammunition and character stats.

The LCD would be more useful if it showed things like an in-game map and an extra inventory screen, none of which we've found on the games we've tested. One good aspect of the Logitech G19 Keyboard is the Ventrilo plug-in that lets you know who's talking during game-play.

The Logitech G19 Keyboard has the potential to improve greatly through its software development kit. This is what took the G15 to the next level - custom apps developed by the gaming community. It's only been three months since the G19's release, so that's something we'll just have to keep watching for.

The Logitech G19 Keyboard was a slight improvement over the G15, but it won't enjoy the same popularity unless some custom applications are developed to utilize these new features, which may or may not happen due to its price tag.