New keyboard’s here YAAAAAAAY!

I’ve been wanting to get a new keyboard for a while now, partly because I wanted to swap out the one I use at work but mainly because acquiring something new and shiny helps fill the aching chasm in my soul.

I’ve had a Logitech K750 Solar keyboard for a while now and although I love it (it’s my second one), my corner of the living room doesn’t get much sunlight. This isn’t a problem when using the keyboard for typing or work, but since I recently got back into playing games I’ve discovered that holding the forward key down all the time wipes out its battery, meaning it has to sit outside in the sun to recharge. So I took it to work and plugged it in there as I have more sunlight in my little corner of the office, along with hypothermia thanks to the air conditioning vent right above my desk. 

I brought my Logitech K520 back to use at home but, although it did sterling service at work, for some reason I went off it. I thought it was too chunky for my IKEA desk and too loud when typing. I also missed the contoured laptop-style keys of the K750. After hemming and hawing for a few days I decided to finally order a new keyboard.

After hunting around on Amazon I found the Logitech (are you spotting a trend here?) K740 Illuminated Keyboard. I ended up ordering it from Best Buy because even though it was $5 more expensive than Amazon, that extra $5 meant same-day delivery. Yay internet.

As with so many online deliveries, your relatively small purchase is packaged in a ginormous box with tons of bubblewrap to stop it rattling around too much. I used to own a K740 — I’ve been a loyal Logitech customer for years, apart from that time I bought the Microsoft Arc keyboard and mouse — but that one broke back in 2012.



Here’s the box after being taken out of the ginormous box. I am a fan of Logitech’s packaging and design. I am also trying to develop a life.

Inside the box that was inside the ginormous box is the monolith from 2001. 



Inside the box that was inside the slightly larger box that was inside the ginormous box is the actual keyboard, wrapped in a protective plastic bag to keep it safe from... er... cardboard burns? Anyway,  SQUEEEEE!



Before we go any further, yes I have a magenta rug under my desk, Anyway, here’s the K740 in front of the K520. The empty coffee mug and my vape pen are just there for scale, honest. And don’t tell Cadbury that I have a pic of a cute golden retriever puppy on my mousemat. It was at this moment I realised that the K740 isn’t wireless, which is a bit of a bugger. I mean, it’s never going to run out of battery power ten minutes before press deadline, but then again that’s another USB slot on the PC gone. 



I took a pic of the keyboard from above to show off the backlit keys but thanks to my awesome camera skills it’s blurred to buggery, so here’s a close-up. The keys have three levels of brightness, so I’ve put them on level two for now. Installation was, in technical terms, a doddle — just plug it in and wait about three seconds for Windows to make its “THIS IS ACCEPTABLE” noise which means it’s ready to go.

One thing I did notice is that the logo on the wrist rest is different to all my previous Logitech keyboards. After using the Google for a bit, I found a post that explains the new look. It also bitches about me using an adblocker, but I don’t read blogs to look at ads so whatever.

By this point I’m sure you’re all wondering “Why am I not watching cat videos on YouTube?” so I’ll get a move on. The typing action — which I’m incredibly fussy about — is great. The keys are comfy to use and it doesn’t take much effort to type; they’re much like those on my solar keyboard. It’s very quiet to use and even the wrist rest, a thing which I have never been a fan of, does the job pretty well. It also uses a pretty cool futuristic font on the keys. There is one unforeseen problem, though:

Because it’s wired I can’t simply shove it under the PC when it’s time for food as the cable gets in the way, so I have to turn in 90 degrees and kind of slide it back a bit. On the one hand this is hardly a matter for complaint, but then again I cannot believe that my grandad spent six years of his life fighting Nazis only for me to end up mildly inconvenienced like this.

Tl;DR: Pros — new and shiny, so distracts the voices in my head for a while; same day delivery means my cravings for instant gratification were fulfilled within three hours of ordering. Cons — a smidgen of effort required at mealtimes.