I was at Sim Lim Square the other day, innocently getting other more mundane stuff (thermal paste, USB extension cables etc), where I chanced upon this keyboard – the Logitech G810 Orion Spectrum.

Now, I actually had no real reason to get a new keyboard, except that my old gaming PC just had the Intel CPU replaced by Intel. My old keyboards that I had lying around had stiff keys… couldn’t type very fast on them anymore.

This is a departure from my older G710+, where I had macro keys for gaming. This keyboard clearly has them missing. Why did I get this? I realised that the G keys are more or less kind of a gimmick. In my daily life, and gaming life, I hardly EVER use them. Only when trying to labouriously rename a bunch of files, I MAY use the macro keys to record keystrokes so that I just press the G key for the files to be renamed. But those instances are few and far in between. I definitely NEVER program a G key in the middle of a game, in any case.

The only game(s) I actually use the G-keys for, is Elite Dangerous. However, with my  X52 Pro HOTAS, these keys became obsolete too – all the required functions can be programmed onto the HOTAS. My hands almost never touch the keyboard now.

The gimmick for this model is the individually programmable colour keys. Yes your A and your S keys can be different colours. The picture above is my “default” daily use colours. Well if I get tired of these colours I can redo them again later.

The Logitech Gaming Software is able to light your keyboard up in different colours depending on the game profile. As you can see from the picture below, when playing Elite Dangerous I programmed the colours to match the ones in the game – in essence making it “fit” with the game.

In other games with more keys being used, you can highlight the often-used keys in brighter colours and dimming the other keys so they don’t distract you from the game.

So what happened to my G710+? It’s being used at the older gaming PC (i5-4690, 32GB RAM, GTX 770). Keys still work, only the E and the D keys there are slightly worn. Still not as bad as a big white splotch of light shining through the keycap, but the E is clearly no longer an E 🙂