Silicon Reviews: Logitech MX Keyboard

The lower profile keys on the MX Keys keyboard are well-spaced and responsive if you like Chiclet key design. The keys’ travel is not as far as a mechanical keyboard but is tactile enough to respond well when typing at speed. Both touch and hunt-and-peck typists should be fine with accuracy. The MX will feel familiar if you like typing on a laptop keyboard.

This keyboard uses its own receiver, which will need a spare USB port on your PC or Mac, or you can connect with Bluetooth, which offers maximum versatility. Once a connection is made, this is solid with no dropout or delay. Also, the MX Keyboard offers multiple connection support with up to three devices. Switching devices is a simple matter of pressing the appropriate F key.

Powered by a rechargeable battery, you have a choice regarding battery life: The MX Keyboard is backlit for those night owls that like to work in low light. The manufacturers claim 10 days of battery life if the backlight is on. Switching the light off delivers many more days, even weeks, of usage before a recharge (via USB Type-C), is needed. Sensors switch on and off the light as you approach the keyboard. And an ambient light sensor to adjust the brightness of the backlight. Whether you find this a gimmick or highly useful will be a matter of personal choice.

The design of the MX Keyboard is in two-tone grey. The main body is silver and is nicely offset by the black keys. The rechargeable battery compartment runs the keyboard length, tilting the keys towards you. Again, whether this angle is sufficient for comfortable typing will be a personal preference. No wrist rest is provided, but Logitech has its own design for the MX range.

Logitech Options is the application used to control and configure the MX Keyboard. Users can choose how function keys operate, including specialist keys on top of the number keypad. It’s also possible to link these keys to specific applications creating key profiles.

I have been using the MX Keyboard every day since its launch. The MX range is hard to beat if you prefer low-profile keyboards over their mechanical counterparts. However, the backlight option proved to be too much of a drain on the battery. Switching this off ensured I was reaching for the recharge cableless only once a month, which was welcome. There is an LED that indicates when a recharge is needed.

Being able to switch the keyboard to work with multiple devices is also an innovation many users will welcome, as many workers will have several digital devices. I say workers, as the MX range is clearly aimed at the productivity sector.

The keyboard is not cramped. The keys are placed wider apart than other compact keyboards. Logitech also has their MX Keys Mini for Business, which calls on the design aesthetic of the MX range but in a form factor that is a third the size of the full-sized keyboard. The Mini also aims at users who need to support Windows and Mac in the same working environment.