Most people who come here know I am an avid gamer, especially first-person shooters, and have been for the majority of my life. And I am not alone, gaming has been a phenomenon for at least 2 decades on personal computers.

Why, then, has it taken until the last couple years that keyboards geared for gamers have come from the depths of the abyss? I mean, to me, it’s a no-brainer and a hole in the market. Except for a few horrible cheap tries, the ZBoard was the first decent attempt I saw. And then the Saitek gaming keyboard. Both have enticed me, but not quite enought to buy.

Leave it to Logitech. As soon as it was announced, I knew I would be purchasing the G15 Gaming Keyboard. After a few months of wait, I thought it would be released in October… but the Logitech site, even at the time of this post, still says it’s “coming soon”. Luckily I heard a tip that some had been spotted in Best Buys, and I found the keyboard at one of my local stores. It appears they may have some kind of limited-time exclusivity on the keyboard like the have had on other Logitech products like the MX510 mouse an dthe new G5 mouse.

So, I get the box home and plug the keyboard in. The drivers installed flawlessly, and don’t have much of a memory footprint. The LCD screen on the top displays time, CPU and RAM status, volume controls, and even songs I play with Winamp. The blue glow is great and comes through each key very nicely. The little switch to turn off the windows keys is a perfect touch, and the 18 macro buttons are just waiting to be programmed.

The keyboard has nice keys that are not mushy or overly rattley (is rattley a word?). They keys are smaller (in width) than the keys on my Logitech Internet Navigator keyboard, but they also travel further and are more responsive. The volume wheel I love, as I had one in a previous keyboard and wheels are much better than buttons to control volume.

Like all Logitech keyboards I have used, the wristrest is flimsy, but it does its job so far. The keyboard itself is extremely solid and pretty heavy. The keys and black plastic have a flat satin finish on them that gives the appearance of hard rubber.

So far the keyboard has proved pretty useful in games. The lighting is the main thing. I honestly haven’t used the macro keys much, but I tested the on-the-fly macro making and it works very well. Or you can use the macro maker in the profile program, which allows more fine tuning and editing.

A little pricey at $80, but it’s the best gaming keyboard out there.

On to the pics!