I've been lucky enough to obtain Logitech's new £150 beef of a gaming keyboard the G19 and as I've been so lucky I thought I'd do a quick review on my experience so far with the keyboard. For people who don't know the G-series keyboards by Logitech are aimed at gaming and often have an LCD screen to display extra data which playing games and numerous other features relating to games such as macro keys, backlighting, media keys and profiles. Straight out of the box the keyboard looks amazing and has a hefty weight to it with everything looking top-notch quality until you see the wrist rest. It's much better than then original G15 rest but it still needs some work and it still feels loose when attached to the keyboard.

With that being one of the only downsides to this keyboard you can continue reading to hear about the pure bliss of all the other features of this keyboard: 

I've been a proud owner of the original Logitech G15 gaming keyboard since version 1 came out a few years ago, but over time and numerous hours of gaming the keyboard has seen better days. I have been lucky enough to get the new and improved Logitech G19 gaming keyboard. For me the main part of the keyboard has to be the keys and the G19 delivers, they keys have a slightly "clicky" feel similar to the original G15 but are more flushed and softer to touch. The keyboard is great to type on with the keys feeling slightly spongy and it takes a bit of effort to make a typo. I'm mainly amazed by how smooth everything feels and how fluid it is when typing, this could mainly be because its a new keyboard and that's why it is so much better compared to the G15.

The colour LCD is the biggest new feature of the device so let's have a quick look at what it can do. The screen is gorgeous with vibrant colours and produces a really sharp looking picture. There is only around 10 stock programs for the LCD but they do cover a wide range of utilities such as a POP3 checker, Youtube video watcher to a Standard video/picture player. The applications are pretty well done but they could do with some more features as like the Youtube video viewer only lets you choose from certain categories such as Top Rated etc but the playback is fantastic without any slow down never mind what I'm doing on my computer. I think this is because the keyboard has a mini-style PC inside it to keep things running smoothly even when you are playing games. Most of the apps look pretty dull as well and all of them come in the standard green Logitech theme which cannot be changed, but with the SDK freely available and Logitech giving extra support custom apps are only a few weeks away. I've only tried one custom application which basically showed you what gadgets you had running off your desktop/sidebar and while it was primitive in design it worked really well and was extreme simple to install.

One thing I do love about this keyboard compared to its younger G15 brother is the navigation controls for the LCD screen which allow you to do so much more with your applications such as change settings and choose different options easily. With quick switching off apps you actually feel like using the LCD screen as a side computer rather than just looking at it for information you can actually interact with it so much more. Another problem I do have is the power cable, yes it needs a power cable to power the colour LCD screen which is understandable but the cable is so rigid at the moment it's impossible for me to keep the cable out of the way. I'm hoping over time this will sort its self out, one of the major benefits of having the powercable though is having fully powered USB ports so you can actually use them compared to the G15 wouldn't accept hardly anything I added to it. One little bonus for me is now the keyboard works on boot which my G15 never would so I had to plug in another keyboard every time I wanted to get in the Bios or fix an issue with windows crashing.

Overall the keyboard is a fantastic piece of kit and even though the price is high I think most gamers will get the full use out of it, I just hope Logitech keep working on the SDK and create new apps to get the full potential of the screen. Come on Logitech, you have made and amazing piece of hardware now just get the software to the same level.

Here is a quick shot of the Logitech 19 next to the Logitech G15 (version 1), I find it surprising that the G19 is actually smaller but with less macro keys and without the random G15 handles I suppose it makes sense. I do prefer the G19 colour scheme and it defiently doesn't look as cheap but I'm guessing thats because the G15 is a good 3 years old now.