http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/keybo ... 0&cl=us,en

I noticed logitech announcement of their upcomming release in october. Illuminated keyboard looks to have very promising keytype in silent perspective besides its ridicioulesly thin ^^



And best of all is that you can also shutdown lights... and they are not blue! ^^. Seems bit pricey though $80 in USD's and around 54€'s.

Unfortunately, it's probably going to be unusable for a lot of people, because the images show an oversized Delete key. Whoever thought of that should be fed to killer ants. Or bees.

I think oversized del key has been standard for most logitech keyboards. I find it very useful myself.

Old-school people, like myself, use Ctrl, Shift, Insert and Delete for copy/cut/paste. Not having the Insert key there instantly makes the keyboard completely, and I mean completely unusable, at least for me.

If it's anything like other logitech's, insert is located above the delete key. Anyway Ctrl+c/x/v is better anyway, takes only 1 hand...

It's easy to spot the "Windows generation" with their awkward X-C-V

wow i didnt event know that shift+delete and shift+insert had a use like thank.
But I would still use the ctrl+c/x/v

By the way the keyboard looks great, stylish, sleek and silent (i dont know why) a bit pricey though.

There is also the new diNovo for Notebooks. Looks very similar, with no lights at all.

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/keybo ... 2&cl=us,en

And its about twice more expensive than illuminated keyboard but roughly half of the price of old DiNovo... Logitech's new keyboards do look good.

There's a lot of text editing keyboard shortcuts that "newbies" (please don't take this as derogatory, I just lack a better word) don't know. Most use the Ctrl key and the arrows or editing block.

Some examples:

Ctrl + Insert - copy
Shift + Insert - paste
Shift + Delete - cut
Ctrl + Left/Right - move cursor to next/previous word break
Ctrl + Home/End - begginning/end of text
(the above two can be used with Shift, naturally)
Ctrl + Delete - delete forward to word break
Ctrl + Backspace - delete backward to word break (especially great in browsers, some don't even require focus in the address bar)

The right side of the keyboard is much, much superior for any kind of text editing than the left. All you have on the left is Ctrl+X-C-V and nothing else. Also, raise a hand if you've never pressed the wrong key while doing that, or raise a hand if you have to look at what key you are pressing.

After using the Apple Aluminum Keyboard for a while, I can tell you that getting used to the Insert key being slightly higher is not much of a problem. I'd be worried if Logitech used their other "smart" layout, with special keys put in just two columns—that one can really mess you up. (Speaking as a pro who's cashflow depends a lot on keyboard usability. )

@thejamppa
Perfect stroke, and longer travel keys, are only good up to a certain typing speed. I'll take the diNovo any day.

Well... there are some of us who switched from ctl-ins to ctl-v (and such-like) when moving from OS/2 to NT. The issue was that a lot of doc processors didn't work that great with just the keyboard - so it was right hand on the mouse/trackpad/whatever and left hand on ctl-C etc.
Yeah, it didn't matter for text editors, but IMHO, the emacs key combinations that do these same things are a closer match to ctl-c than to ctl-ins. ditto X-edit key combinations (3270 terminal M/VS os).
So don't be so sure...

Speaking of illuminated keyboards and key combinations, there was a 3270 that had individual key illumination controllable by the app running on the mainframe. You could easily tell the user "the next key I'm expecting is one of these..." There were versions of X-Edit that could do this (important when you'd typically hit a control key and then the individual key to indicate what you want to do). Pretty cool for when it was...

I forgot to mention - I'm using a saitek keyboard (a gamer's board) for coding - and love the key action. I hate the illumination though - but I don't work in the dark.
AFAICT there are two kinds of keyboard users.
- the heel-of-hand resters (that'd be me). I'm reading more than typing, even when just writing my own code
- the "classic" "hands in the air" (like they taught in typing class) typists
Walk around at work and watch - you'll see these two styles (well, plus hunt 'n peck)

I just have to figure that a keyboard that makes one happy isn't going to be so great for the other.

Shame that there is not a white version, is my P150 to call it...

Looks good apart from the insert key issue already mentioned. I don't use the insert key much myself, but I need the other keys around it to be in the usual positions. Right now I'm using the original version of the UltraX Flat. This is my second one and when the first one broke it took me quite a while to find another one since they don't sell them anymore. I don't care much for the Logitechs that came after the original UltraX Flat, but this one looks promising.

Don't know if I'd like the glowing though. Do you think it will be possible to dim it down to prevent heavy light pollution in a dark enviroment?

According Logitech you can adjust the illumination power of the keyboard, so it would make sense that you can turn off the lights, how ever I could not find mention about turning lights off...

It sounds like a "more respectable" version of the G15 (which I have). The G15 has got 3 illumination modes, I would expect this baby to be similar.

These modes are:

1 - Off.
2 - Mild illumination
3 - Strong Illumination

Incidentally the "oversized delete" is primarily a European standard - it's something that freaks me out each and every time I get given a US keyboard to work with.

For me, the oversized delete is perfect . But that's down to where you're from I guess .

I've never seen it on any European keyboard. But the smaller enter key on US keyboards is very annoying.

The layout with just two instead of three columns of additional keys is indeed present on some shrinked keyboards. That is a Thing From Hell. The layout with a big Delete, and Insert directly above it, is purely a Logitech thing (and much more user friendly).

I think Microsoft was the first with the oversized Delete key.

As for it being user friendly, those who don't know what Insert is for usually don't know what Delete is for. They just use Backspace.

Having obtained a Logitech Illuminated keyboard, after reading all the rave reviews of it on SPCR, here is my take on it:

Pro:

- Excellent feel of keys. The PerfectStroke really works. It seems to be a happy medium between ultra-light touch laptop keyboards and the piston-shaft desktop keyboards.

- The uniformly black surface works well, and I prefer it to the UltraX with the metal background.

- The built-in wrist pad is nice, soft and warm.

Con:

- The Menu key has been displaced by a silly FN key. To get the Menu, you need to press FN+PrintScreen. Get it?

The brain-damaged rationale for this seems to be the illusion that the users are constantly alternating between viewing the Home page and viewing Help, whereas they might invoke a menu only once in a blue moon. (Logitech seems to have assembled top-notch engineers but idiotic computer scientists. They will be better off firing all their computer scientists and letting the engineers do the job.)*

- The function keys are slim, can't see why, but they are elevated a bit which partially makes up for the short-coming.

- The SetPoint software uses a 4-year old Visual C++ library (VC8), which they can't seem to update, despite Microsoft explicitly telling them to do. But after you take all the trouble to install the software, it basically does nothing. (Another reason to fire all their computer scientists.)*

I am having a hard time trying to decide whether to keep this or to go back to UltraX.

Cheers,
Uday

* I am a computer scientist.

I've had the Logitech Illuminated Keyboard (that's a mouthful, I'll just call it the LIK ) for a while now. I got it from ebay for $40 with free shipping, which is quite a deal for what it is.

It's very classy and pretty quiet - possibly about as quiet as a traditional mechanical keyboard can be.

Yes, you can turn the illumination off. The illumination button cycles through off -> 100% -> 50% -> 25% -> off again. I used to have a junky old 17" LCD screen and liked the illumination at 50%. Since I've upgraded to a 23" 1080p LCD, I need it at 100% to compete with the screen's brightness.

My biggest con is that the F-keys light up with their special function (eg. Homepage), rather than their F-number (eg F11).

It's also a little bit too thin, and the feet are kinda small. The whole thing flexes a bit if you type hard, but it isn't overall that bad. The wrist rest has sort of a rubbery finish. I've marred mine a couple times by dropping sharp corners of things onto it, which is a little unsightly. Also, you can't detach the wrist rest.

Other people have complained about certain sequences of keys not registering. I haven't encountered that at all. I suspect it only applies to sloppy typists.

Looks nice, but as usual the major drawback to any logitech input device is the ridiculous setpoint bloat-ware.
-When they fix that, I will surely reconsider.

Yeah, Setpoint is crap. I never installed it. The keyboard works fine without it, and I would never use whatever fancy features Setpoint enables anyway.

Some keys are noisy on my LIK, how are yours?

The only key that's particularly noisy on my LIK is the spacebar, just because it's bigger. It makes a lower-pitched Thunk. All the other keys just output a soft rat-a-tat.

Lucky you. I've found that some of my keys' innards must be slightly off balance, if "E" key for instance is being pressed dead center, there's a click sound that definitely isn't part of the keyboard's typical laptop feel. If the key is pressed off-center it is as silent as others. The Enter key makes a springy noise if pressed off-center. Tab key is somewhat noisy too. Some keys sometimes squeaks but often dont.
The quietest key is right Ctrl key, I don't hear anything from it.

Fortunately, the space bar is as quiet as the small keys!

If you depend on the Menu key, like I do, it seems that you have to just write off this piece of keyboard real estate. Logitech confirmed that "even using software", you can't remap the FN key. Even Sharpkeys can't do it because it is handled in the hardware and the key stroke doesn't reach Windows. The only way to get a workable Menu key is then to remap the Left Windows key (because the Right Windows key has been eaten up by the oversized FN key as well). It is going to be fun to retrain my brain to think left to open a menu!

Cheers,
Uday

I wouldn't say it's awkward. I know of ctrl-ins/shift-ins from dos days, but X-C-V is more convenient. For one you can do it with one hand only, and shifting your pinky down to CTRL is less taxing than moving your entire right hand to hit INS. Two is kind of similar, if your right hand is holding the mouse, moving right hand to the keyboard wastes time, X-C-V is once again faster.

I've had this kb for about 1yr and like it a lot - best KB I've ever owned.

But a sincere question ... can't you remap your KB under Windoze so if you *need* some specific key not present on the KB then you can simply map the function to some other key ?

This is mindlessly simple on Linux/X11. It's really silly if Win doesn't have such a feature.