Logitech G810 Orion Spectrum Review

Logitech G810 Orion Spectrum Review

Introduction

Logitech Gaming Keyboards.

If you’re of a certain age then you’ve probably owned a Logitech keyboard at some point. There was a point in time where, like the Intellimouse Explorer, a Logitech keyboard was just the thing to have, particularly when your only other option was some IBM number out of the dark ages.

Gaming keyboards as a whole have gone through some strange variants before they found their feet. Whether it’s flexible ones in case you spill your Mountain Dew, or ones aping the feel of a ZX48 Spectrum, it seemed manufacturers tried everything before they realised that just making a good quality, hard wearing product with a few media keys pretty much got the job done.

Whilst other companies were refining their products and honing them to within an inch of their life, at perhaps the expense of individuality, Logitech stuck steadfast to their “everything but the kitchen sink” approach. This meant that the specifications list and feature set for their keyboards was lengthy and attention grabbing, but they always looked like they were out of a 90s teen movie, rather than something that migrated out of the bedroom when our PCs did.

The G810 Orion Spectrum seeks to redress this imbalance by trimming off all the fat from the Logitech range and focussing upon the key areas that are popular, namely good quality switches and fantastic lighting. Does it succeed in this goal?

Technical Specifications

By virtue of the minimalist approach, the specifications for the G810 are brief. It has the full RGB lighting that is now de rigueur. It has dedicated media keys, vital for muting things in a hurry. It has a button to lock out the Windows key – and any keys at all you choose, as we’ll see later – which is vital for stopping those game changing sudden appearances of your desktop.

Lastly, and in our first surprise of the review, Logitech have eschewed the Cherry MX switches beloved of every major gaming keyboard on the market, and utilised Romer-G switches. No, us neither.

The Romer-G promise a much faster actuation depth of only 1.5mm when compared to the regular Cherrys. Fast and responsive definitely is the watchword here. Additionally they are linear in response, meaning that you’re not having to push past a tactile bump. With an LED centrally mounted you should have a smoother lighting output when compared to the top-mounted LEDs of the Cherrys. Finally they have been tested to a pretty enormous 70 million keystrokes. Sure your J and [ will probably last longer than you will, but it’s nice to know that the WASD keys wont give up quickly either.