After my recent woes with the Logitech G110 Gaming Keyboard, I went back to my quest for the perfect back-lit keyboard. I’m glad to say my quest has come to an end with the Logitech Illuminated Keyboard. It’s a wired unit, so no worries about running out of batteries and no speed issues when gaming.

The keyboard is physically very thin at about a centimetre and the keys, wide with a short travel, have a laptop feeling to them that’s not unlike my beloved Thinkpad’s (that’s a huge compliment if you haven’t tried a Thinkpad). This is one of the gripes I had with the G110 so I’m now a happy camper and can type without restraints. You can find two fold-out legs to give the keyboard some angle, but not much. There’s no extra USB port, which would have been nice in a keyboard of that price (around $80). The clear plastic bezel surrounding the keyboard gives it a classy style, more so when the back-light is on.

The back-light system has three levels of intensity and is white in colour (no fancy red or blue here). The palm rest is a litte narrow but still very comfortable. The traditional F-keys double as special function keys (when you press the FN key between the Alt and CTRL keys at the righ of the space bar) that can be programmed with the associated software. There’s also a set of volume control keys above the numeric keypad but no dedicated media control keys, which share keys with the F9 to F12 keys and can be activated when pressing the FN key, just as in a lot of laptops.

Installation was once again a breeze, the keyboard was recognized instantly by Windows 7 and the control software is of the lightweight kind. I enjoy being able to disable the Windows key.

I’ve only had it for a few hours and already love it! It is hands down the best desktop keyboard I’ve had in many, many years. I can type fast, my fingers fall naturally on the keys and it’s very quiet. The back-lit keys are very easy to see thanks to the large typeface Logitech used. If you want a good looking keyboard with back-lit keys and a laptop-like feel, this is it.

More details on the manufacturer’s page.