It’s hard to believe, but soon it’s going to be almost one year since the original Logitech G915 came out, I had a chance to try out one few months after in, feel free to check that video out if later if you wish too, but today, today I managed to get my hands on the new G915 TKL version right as it launched.
Although you would think that this is the same keyboard in question, but of with deleted Numpad portion, and it essentially is that, there’s more to it. Design and build quality wise, not a lot has changed, that’s for sure. The design is very clean and straightforward, the top plate has that rounded edges and it’s completely made out of brushed metal, aluminum alloy to be precise, giving it that more premium feels to it and very sturdy construction, even more so now since it’s denser in size.
Instead of being 475 mm wide, the G915 TKL now measures 368 mm in that regard, so that’s over 100 mm of difference. The thickness is also the same, just a smidge above 20 mm. This is sort of weird if you consider that the Logitech G915 TKL is a mechanical keyboard, but here we come to another feature set that his bigger brother known for – switches. These are Logitech’s low-profile GL switches, based on the Kailh Choc switch, PG1350, and the same ones are also being used in the regular model. They are offering them in three different variants, GL Clicky, that’s the one I currently have here with me, GL tactile and GL Linear, all differing in activation point and force, feedback, and sound profile that they provide.
Logitech G915 TKL – same, but different
This is basically one of the mean reasons why the keyboard is so thin in profile, which sort of makes any wrist wrest useless because it would probably raise them too high in relation to the keyboard. You do have an option to raise the keyboards back end thanks to two two-stage standoffs, and I actually found the first lower, 4° angle, was appropriate for this keyboard in my case.
Back here you can also see a couple of rubber feet for better surface grip, as well as a new addition of this sort of like carrying pouch for the receiver, which a cool add-on. Moving to the backside, you’ll find your on and off switch and a microUSB connection with which you get a 1,8 meter long braided cable. And yes, you can use the keyboard and charge it at the same time. Speaking of the battery, there is actually some good news. Maybe you would think that you’ll be greeted by worse battery life since it’s a smaller keyboard in question, so potentially it carries a smaller battery too, but if you count in that almost a quarter of the keyboard is gone, meaning that there are fewer keys to be lit up, which then translate into longer battery life. Granted, if the battery capacity is the same and by the looks of it it probably is, because the full-sized model was rated at 30 hours with full back-light and the G915 TKL is at 40 hours. I don’t mind not using the back-light, so I got even more battery life in my case, so your mileage can vary depending on that.
So, what about the keyboard layout when doing G915 vs G915 TKL comparison. Well, besides getting rid of the Numpad portion, which comes in as compromise of having a much smaller footprint, and a lot of users will be happy to make that trade, they also made few other changes. We don’t have the dedicated G programmable buttons on the left side of the keyboard, making the keyboard even more compact. We also don’t have any dedicated memory profile switches, they are now nested with the first four Function keys, the last one being the micro record switch. You can activate them using the Fn key, which makes them a little bit less practical overall. Because of that, the RGB Logitech Gaming G logo is now moved right above the escape key.
The big volume wheel is still present, tucked away in the right top corner of the keyboard, but they did re-positioned the rubberized media keys which are right below it, and now put them right next to it along the top edge of the keyboard. With this the Lightspeed logo, battery, and caps lock LED indicator lights were also moved to the middle, while the rest of the switches also got bumped basically to the left corner of the keyboard. Here we have brightness switch, game mode switch for disabling certain keys so you can avoid triggering them while playing, like for example Windows key, Bluetooth switch for pairing and connecting your keyboard with a Bluetooth device, for example, your tablet or smartphone, and lastly, the wireless Lightspeed switch for getting back to the
wireless connection over the dongle.
Lightspeed for G915 TKL
Speaking of the Lightspeed technology, although a long time you could say that gaming and wireless couldn’t be put in the same sentence, today that’s completely changed. Using this technology Logitech was able to bring down the latency next to none, which really feels like that when using it, without doing any serious testing, I couldn’t differ it from a wired keyboard. The 2,4 GHz receiver communicated flawlessly with the keyboard in my case, if you want you can pair with the cable and USB adapter hub so you can move it around and have a better connection in case your PC is too far.
Since we’re already talking about the user experience, although I love this particular layout and the key sizes and placement, to be honest, I’m personally not too keen on TKL keyboards. Before all that’s because I don’t game a lot on my main PC, nowadays I basically only do some driving in iRacing on it, plus I do use the Numpad a lot, like a really lot, as I edit documents, use a couple of content creation tools and other applications, so it’s just not practical for me to use it. Putting that aside, looking it from the perspective of being really small and compact, I do love that approach, but I don’t think I would rather take that in exchange for better workflow. My muscle memory kicked in a couple of times when I was using it, grabbed a bit of air a couple of times. Maybe I should get something like Elgato or other third parties, but then again, it beats the purpose of a small keyboard as I’m going to clutter the table anyway.
What I do always like is the fact that this is a mechanical keyboard, I love that clicky-clacky sound and feedback which these particular switches provide, although this one is a bit too clicky for my taste, then again, it is a clicky model, that’s right in it’s naming. I would personally go for the GL Tactile in this case. Here’s a short sound clip of how the keys sound alone and compared to the Cherry MX Brown on my DasKeyboard.
Since I get a lot question about the two-row enter that are usually found on the keyboards which I’ reviewing, and since this depends on the region you are living and what ISO standard does that region most commonly use, I assume that a lot of you will be interested in the part number of this two-row enter version of G915 TKL, so I’m showing you the particular part number for this SKU you can search for it a bit more easily.
What about the price?
Of course, all of this is accompanied with Logitech G Hub software, which at the time of making this video still didn’t have an updated version that could recognize the new G915 TKL, but I assume it won’t be any different with what I’ve experienced with the regularly G915 feature-wise. You will be able to control the back-lighting for the keys in 16,8 million different colors and probably the same amount of lighting effects, set up your profiles, macros, and keys, and of course check out the precise battery level, because on the keyboard is not that telling.
The price, oh the price. Well, you all know that the fully sized one starts at around 250$, which is unthinkable high for a keyboard. Yeah, you have an option gone to for the G815, which is the same keyboard basically, only wired, but still, then one will also bottom out your wallet. The prices basically haven’t dropped since then, you can maybe grab it on a discount here and there, but generally speaking they stayed put. With that said, expectedly the G915 TKL sits in between those two, with the official price tag of exactly 230$.
Again, this a lot of money for a keyboard, but on the other side, this is a really unique model and Logitech seems to know what it has in its hands, although, ever since the original wireless mechanical keyboard came out, their G613 model, there has been a lot of attempts from other manufacturers to provide the similar offering, like Keychron for example which has grown in popularity. Cooler Master made a quite a compelling offer with their SK651 and SK631 models, but then they never became available to my understanding, just their wired brothers.
Anyhow, the experience is basically the same compared to its non-TKL model, so you know what you’re gonna get, the only question is are you willing to pay your hard earn money for it.
That’s it for this time, thanks for checking out my Logitech G915 TKL review, if you have any question feel free to hit me in the comments section of my YouTube video listed above, you can contact me via my social media channels!
