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The first step is "I don't have a problem, I can stop whenever I want", right?

This week I purchased some "gaming" input peripherals, because "gaming" has come to mean "good" in the eyes of peripheral manufacturers. I wasn't disappointed by that assumption.

G7 Gaming Mouse

Logitech really has no competition for mice. My previous mouse, an MX1000, was, when I purchased it, by far the best mouse I'd ever used. My only complaint about it, aside from the "doesn't work well on reflective surfaces" problem that many optical mice have, was that it was getting to the point where the (internal, non-replaceable) battery was run down all the time, and the transmitter / stand was slightly warped after much usage, so the contacts no longer directly lined up where they were supposed to and I had to spend 20 minutes fiddling with it every time I wanted to get it to charge.

Given this previous problem with stand-charger-based mice (the MX1000 is not the first wireless mouse I've had this happen to) the G7 was impressive right out of the box. There are 2 battery cartridges: one stays in the charger at all times, one is in the mouse. That means the charger is smaller, doesn't have to be located on my desk, and when the mouse does need charging, I have 30 seconds without a mouse instead of an hour and a half. The charger, while itself small, also has a tiny, detachable USB transmitter, making it a cinch to pop this mouse into my laptop bag for short trips.

What else can a mouse do? Comfortable in my hand: check. Tracks smoothly: very check. I have no objective way to measure it but it certainly feels at least as smooth as any other mouse I've used. Works on glossy surfaces... check? Color me impressed, it worked on at least 3 different surfaces, including my Wacom tablet, that caused my MX1000 grief. It still gets upset if I put it on a mirror, though.

The feature that impressed me the most, and that gives it a real claim to being a "gaming" mouse, was that it has a speed shifter. This never would have occurred to me. Two buttons under the scroll wheel increase and decrease the mouse's speed (in hardware, so it works with linux) from "slow" to "fast" to "crazy". Playing Quake 4 this weekend, this feature was super-handy when getting into an armored vehicle that slows down the mouse to simulate a feeling of weight . Even using regular applications, it's handy; with 2560 pixels to cover on my desktop from edge to edge, it's nice to be able to crank up the speed, rocket over to my left desktop, slow down to pinpoint emacs's title bar, then speed up again to yank it all the way over to the right.

G15 Gaming Keyboard

In a word: huge.

This keyboard is probably the largest that I've ever seen, let alone used or purchased. The IBM model M, named the "desk-dominator" for its unnatural size, is 492 mm x 210 mm (19.4” x 8.3”). This thing is 546mm x 267mm (21.5” x 10.5”).

So far though, the size seems to be worth it. It has the best tactile response I've gotten from a membrane keyboard ever, blowing even the previous front-runner in that category, the Eclipse, out of the water. I can routinely do slightly better than usual in gtypist, even after only having used this keyboard for a day. The "squeak" I've mentioned in previous reviews is completely absent.

The basic layout is a no-nonsense PC-104 key, Everything in the right place, with escape offset slightly - I find I don't mind, but I suspect die-hard Vim fans will likely have a more intense reaction, whether they love it or hate it.

It also includes some special features, which are an annoyance on many keyboards, but which I am generally pleased with on this one. It has a standard set of media keys and a volume knob, all of which worked out of the box on Ubuntu. There's also a switch to turn off the "windows key". It's handy when playing games on Windows; although obviously not a terribly useful feature in Linux when Windows => Hyper and won't magically break you out of a running game. Nevertheless, it works in Linux as well.

It also features backlit keys, a first in a Logitech keyboard. The backlight is subtle, and when it's off, the keycaps are almost black. There's a switch to toggle it on and off, and between two levels of intensity.

The G15 also includes 2 USB ports, which is a welcome addition, and something I've wished every USB keyboard has done since I stopped using a Mac as my primary machine. I now have somewhere convenient on my desk to plug in my USB SSH key and camera. Unfortunately Windows seems to (wrongly?) believe that the keyboard hub doesn't have enough power to drive the thumb drive. Linux powers it without complaint. There are also 2 small grooves to run wires under the keyboard, which is great as they allow me to run my headset cable underneath the keyboard without it rocking slightly where it balances on the cord.

The special "G" keys on the left side of the keyboard are the main attraction. On Linux they are just repeats of F1-F12 and 1-6, which isn't great, but at least the keys provide some default behavior and they're not totally dead, as many special keys are. Since I regrettably must boot into Windows for the majority of gaming these days anyway, this lack of functionality didn't disappoint me too much.

On Windows, with the included driver software (which I will note, did not ask me to reboot!) the G key functionality really shines. They can be bound to any other key, or any sequence of keys, including delays. There is a Macro Record (MR) button which allows you to quickly and easily configure any key to be a timed sequence of keystrokes. This means that in World of Warcraft, I can script a sequence of attacks, including cooldown times, simply by hitting MR, a G key, doing the attacks, then the MR key again to finish. Unfortunately it's unlikely that this functionality will be useful in anything other than a MMORPG, but given how useful it is there, I think it's worth the extra few inches of desk real estate.

Finally, the keyboard also includes an LCD display. I wish I had more to say about this, since it seems like it could be a really killer feature, but the included applications are really sparse; a clock, a CPU meter, a volume meter. I'll be watching g15mods.com to see if anything interesting comes out (not least of which, Linux drivers).

Overall

The G7 is definitely the best mouse I've yet used, gaming or no; I think I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a good wireless mouse.

I can't be quite so unequivocal about the G15, but I'm still pretty pleased with it. The tactile response is good; the frame is incredibly sturdy, it looks cool, if massive, the USB ports are handy and the G-keys are really useful in the place where they're supposed to be, to wit, a video game. The jury's still out on the LCD display, and lack of linux support is always a problem with funky features, although offering the Windows SDK on the CD with the keyboard was a nice touch.

The last keyboard I bought was a last-minute purchase, almost entirely at random. The keyboard that I really had my eyes on at the time was the Belkin
MediaPilot, which seems a rather transparent competitive answer to the DiNovo. Wandering through Microcenter this weekend, I saw a copy; and since I was still well within the "no questions asked" return period with my Eclipse, I purchased one to see how it would stack up.

See the "mood" header to see how it did.

Cons

The MediaPilot is a mediocre execution of a really great idea. On the surface this keyboard looks great: slimline form-factor; integrated pointing device; a few extended function keys without going insane; detachable "small" wireless keyboard while still providing full 104-key functionality when docked; dock to avoid batteries running out on you at an awkward moment.

Much as the Eclipse was a terrific keyboard that didn't look terribly good at first blush, this is a keyboard that looks terrific but somehow just doesn't measure up.

First of all, the key switches are absolutely the lowest quality that you can buy anywhere. Straight out of the box, this keyboard has keys that stick or randomly get double-typed. The keyboard actually shipped with the "0" key on the numeric keypad detached; I fixed it myself. The keyboard's plastic is so chintzy that it deformed before I opened the box; this means that when it's in "docked" mode, the keyboard has a tendency to rock diagonally, slightly.

While they haven't committed any unforgivable sins, there are still some serious problems with the layout of this keyboard. The right-most row of keys on the mini-board, for convenience, I suppose, is "Home, PgUp, PgDn, End, Right". This means that if I feel my way along the right edge of the keyboard to hit a key such as backslash or enter, I am always over one key too far. Because these keys are already provided on the mini-board, the dock-board provides "Insert/Sleep/ScrollLock/Delete/PrintScreen/PauseBreak" in the space where the 6-key set of Insert/Home/PgUp/Delete/End/PgDn is normally located,

Pros

It's not all bad, though. It is a slimline keyboard, it is relatively comfortable to type on; the wireless portion of the keyboard is extremely light and easy to toss around; the integrated pointing device also contains an integrated scroll wheel which is really handy. Pretty much all of the extended function keys work with Linux (although some only show up in 'showkey' and not in 'xev', so there are a few which would be impossible to bind to an X event out of the box).

Also, the "universal remote" functionality is very very cool if this is going to be hooked up to a computer hooked to a television set.

Conclusion

If I were going to buy a keyboard for a computer attached to a really nice plasma television, where I would frequently want to grab the keyboard and sit back on the couch to watch movies on it, but would sometimes want to sit closer-up to work on code, this keyboard would be ideal. In such a situation its sins would be forgivable and its features would be fantastic. However, in a normal office environment its warts are horrible and the fact that part of it is detachable does almost no good; in trying to experiment with different positions I could type with it in, I discovered that a major reason I like a wireless keyboard in an office is to move the keyboard aside to clear the desk real estate for some other activity, and the MediaPilot's wireless feature doesn't help with this at all.

I gave this keyboard a last chance by typing up this review on it, but my conclusion stands: as it is, though, I'll be returning this keyboard and sticking with the Saitek Eclipse.

This isn't an essay I've had in mind for any time, but the photo is kind of neat, and it happened today.

I have managed to avoid purchasing a keyboard for almost a year now. Apparently this is too long:



Today briefly before lunch, the "Alt" key on my Bluetooth DiNovo finally gave up the ghost. It's still under warranty, but I was in the middle of hacking with Emacs, and you can't really do that without a meta key. I really do destroy keyboards at an unbelieveable rate. As a backup, I purchased a somewhat sturdier and cheaper board; the Saitek Eclipse PC Keyboard.

While it doesn't meet any of my normal criterea for a good keyboard, i.e. it doesn't use mechanical keyswitches and it's not slim form-factor, something about this keyboard just exudes quality. This wasn't a dramatic or somehow amazing keyboard like the Tactile Pro, but it is a quietly comfortable and definitely high-quality keyboard. It's a bit paradoxical - I generally hate membrane keyboards with a lot of travel, but this one seems to be quite comfortable. The keys are a good size, the incline is comfortable, and I seem to be able to break 140wpm consistently in the hard drills at the end of gtypist. It has exactly the keys I need: no funky spatter of random "internet" function buttons that don't work with Linux anyway. All the keys are in exactly the right place; they didn't pull any weird tricks like expanding the Delete key, moving around the backslash or backquote, or sliding the Alt somewhere other than under the thumb. The nominal Control keys are nice and wide, when you need to use them, and the Caps Lock isn't castrated to make it useless as a Control.

But of course, these are all just mistakes they didn't make. It feels nice, and I don't know why. The only concrete difference I can really put my finger on (no pun intended) is the lack of "squeak". Perhaps there is a better word for this, but I have only tested this concept experientially - here's what I mean.

Try this with a normal $5 keyboard: push hard on one of the keys, then slide your finger back and forth. You will notice that it squeaks when you wiggle your finger back and forth, sending vibrations up your arm. I always take this as a sign of the quality of the construction of the keyboard, because the squeak is coming from bits of plastic rubbing against each other which are never really supposed to touch. On really awful keyboards this is bad enough that you can feel the squeak while typing; on others there is just the occasional hint of it.

While this particular feature isn't a deal-breaker for me (even the DiNovo has a tiny bit of squeak) it is definitely a good sign that the Eclipse doesn't have it. I'm enjoying typing on it immensely so far. Its first day it saw a prodigious amount of use, as I was preparing for a rather intense deadline :).