Logitech G13 Advanced Gameboard - 13 more G's than your regular gameboard dawg!

Review from Barry - Wednesday, 27 April 2011 @ 4:23pm

Having trouble remembering those complex elemental combinations in Magicka? Not getting those heals off quick enough in your WoW raids? Sick of clicking through 2 different menus before you can build those addition silos? Well maybe your gaming needs the help of a G13 (or l2p NOOB!)

The concept is a simple one - a small keyboard that fits the outline of you hand filled with 25 buttons that can simulate a single key press or activate a highly complex macro - or series of button presses. Top this off with a thumbstick and a small LCD to display some key stats or ammo counts and you have a G13 Advanced Gamepad.

25 Programmable keys for whatever you dam well please

Its target demographic is the gamers, that much is obvious but as soon as I took it out of the box I almost instantly realised a hand full of programs I use at work which would benefit from a keyboard like this - AutoCAD, Adobe Photoshop, Maya...anything utilising a toolbar system or interface language can instantly be made more efficient by spending a few minutes setting up some simple most used commands. This coupled with the ability to quick switch between macro profiles means that if you're a multi program multitasker like myself, the G13 can easily keep up and switch with the push of a button.

What's that you say??!! A gaming product useful for work environments? Well why not - look at the mouse you are using. If you are lucky its a nice ergonomic mouse with extra buttons and if you are really lucky, an adjustable dpi - all of these help me draw smoother lines and cut masks quicker in Photoshop, work longer without hand cramping and generally be more efficient in my work place.

Still not sold? How about another example? Commands like pre-compose and layer split in After Effects were quickly changed from a 3-4 button keyboard entry to a simple single key press. And when I say quickly changed - I mean in under 30 seconds. There is no need to open the software to set up simple macros - just push the record button, assign a ‘Gkey’, enter the sequence of buttons and push the record button again to finalise it - its that simple!

So many options!

For more setting up more complex keystrokes, macros, assigning shortcuts, entering text blocks, setting scripts & functions like opening My Computer or calculator can be set using the bundled software, all of which is simple and easy to use.

One of the main features of the G13 is a small LCD screen to display various things like cpu / ram usage, RSS feeds, media player info, new email notifications etc while not in game. The idea is that while in game the LCD screen will be able to display things like ammo counts, health & RPG stats. The colour of the screen can also be changed, which made it easy for me to remember which set of commands I had loaded up.

More contours than a surveyors plan

Its not all free beer and pancakes though - while there are a few pre-made game profiles, I found it surprising to not to see the Call of Duty franchise listed there among others. Which means the LCD screen just cycles through its RSS feeds and what not, with not a care in the world for your ammo counts and win/loss ratio. Whether this is due to Logitech or the developer not creating a profile for the game I’m not sure.

Padded palm rest - For your pleasure

Another thing I would really like to see in the list of LCD screen programs (or applets as Logitech, calls them) is a Twitter and Facebook program that would cycle through status updates. Logitech freely provides the SDK that powers the G13, so if your are that way inclined you could code your own applet program, but this is something which falls far outside my realm of knowledge.

Pros

Streamline complex commands to single button presses
Comfortable for long periods of time
LCD screen can display key stats

Cons

Not enough pre-made profiles for games (makes LCD redundant)
Not suited to Fatty Boomba hands
Can be hard to remember which command / macro is mapped to which button