Dopass.com

I have a Logitech G15 keyboard. I love this keyboard, it glows in the dark, as if each key emits a k-wave field, a tiny hologram glowing blue in the shape of the key's letter. It has a LCD screen, it shows me the song winamp is playing - it visualizes the song that's playing. When I play Auto Assault, it shows me my level, the amount of cash I have, the last item I picked up and my current object. It truly is the best keyboard I have used, and I'm an OG that loved my IBM 101 key, literally, to death. It's better than that, seriously.

The key motion is fluid and quiet, though. So you're not talking the same tactile sense as the IBM, of course. None the less, it makes up for it with features, solid construction and the keys glow blue. I can't stress how important that is.

To me, it's more important than the LCD screen or the 18 special keys (with 3 shift modes) for macros, or the fact that you can toggle the windows key off and on (non-functional and functional) with a switch. The fact that the keys not only glow, but glow only where they're supposed to with little or no bleed makes this the perfect type in the dark keyboard. And I like to type in the dark, oh yes. I do.

I don't think Logitech intended them to be used the way I do. No, I don't do anything weird with it, but among other things, I'm a writer. I spend literally all day banging on these keys. Sometimes, if I'm working on a project with a pending deadline I even eat at my desk, so I can eat without losing any time to work.

My usage patterns wear the letters off of the best of keyboards, but I've noticed that it's happening more quickly with the G15 than it did with other keyboards. I thinks it's because they use a light coat of paint over a clear key instead of a smaller stencil only on the center of the key. They do this so that the light glows through the clear non-painted stencil of the letter. So, the contact of my finger on the key is wearing paint out across the whole key, instead of the paint at direct center as it is with traditional keyboards.

The result is that certain keys are wearing out to the point where they don't have letters any more (A and S, but T is fading, too). Funny thing is, it hasn't slowed down my typing or changed my accuracy at all. I don't remember when I stopped looking at the keys, but I remember reading Gibson's stories and I always admired the keyboard with no letters on the keys.

A real console cowboy doesn't need the letters on the keys, (s)he's not looking at them anyway.

- Snipehunter