Logitech have made a name for themselves in the world of simple, workman-like office PC peripherals. Their keyboards are often no-frills affairs, designed to be slotted into a business environment without a fuss. It’s not that they’re pedestrian by any stretch, just that they tend to focus on practicality over flashiness. Their newest high-end wireless board, the Logitech CRAFT, follows this trend but still manages to squeeze a bit of personality in their too.
CRAFT may not seem that impressive on first glance. It certainly appears a bit futuristic with the thick stainless steel bar along the top, its flattened topography and indented keys. But the moment you install it and start using it, you find you’ve got something a little bit different.
I’m a writer. I spent most of my days at my computer, typing. The copious amount of games and tech content I produce for The Iris means my desktop is a work machine more often than its a gaming one. This means I typically keep two keyboards attached to the computer — a quiet, comfortable one for work and a Hyper X Alloy FPS Pro mechanical board for gaming. I bring this up because, were I allowed to keep my loaned review unit, I think the Logitech CRAFT would be my new work board.
The CRAFT board is extremely thin and extremely low profile. Indeed, if I have a gripe with it at all its with how flat it sits. There’s no risers on the back to prop it up. Instead it rests on the slightly raised machine-finished metal bar across the top of the board. You can see an image of this further down in the piece, and the way its photographed makes it look quite a bit more raised than it really is. For those used to typing on a more upright board, you may feel like you’re having to extend your fingers quite a bit further than normal to type.
In every other respect however, this is exactly the sort of board you want to work on. The keys are placed the perfect distance apart so your rarely hit ones you don’t want. The action is pleasantly smooth and they make very little noise unless you really hammer them. They come with the full compliment of function keys with secondary uses, including a few built specifically for Mac and for Windows users alike.
The CRAFT’s biggest selling point however is the context sensitive dial (or crown, as Logitech calls it) that sits in its upper left corner. Using the Logitech Options software, this crown can be used for any number of purposes. By default, it took control of my audio and let me run the last Spotify playlist I’d been listening to on the desktop. If you don’t want it doing this, you can download profiles for a great number of programs, allowing the dial to interact with them in intelligent ways. As an example, I use Firefox as my primary browser. I grabbed the Firefox profile on the Options app, installed it and now I can use the dial to scroll through my tabs with minimal effort. This sounds like a pretty small thing but when you’ve got as many tabs open as I do, that kind of functionality is a godsend.
There are numerous profiles preinstalled for your Windows or Mac machine and it can identify which programs you’ve already got installed from the off. Out of the box I had profiles for Adobe Reader, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Spotify and VLC Media Player ready to go. Better yet, not only can you customise the way the crown interacts with any other applications you have installed, it intelligently switches between profiles as you move from program to program. It will let you know that the profile has switched with a small onscreen prompt and a subtle clicking sound from the keyboard.
Elsewhere, the CRAFT keybaord features all the bells and whistles you’d expect from a board in its class. It features backlit keys, and a sensor that detects when your hands are near so it knows when to turn the lights on. It’s wireless and can be connected either via bluetooth or by the standard Logitech wireless USB chip. There is an internal battery that is recharged via and included USB-C cable and, at the time of writing, I have not had to recharge the keyboard once after a straight week and a bit of use, though the Options app does show that the juice is finally starting to run low.
There’s so much I like about this board. Even the low profile, while a bit uncomfortable initially, was something I came to quite like. This is the sort of board you expect to see in particularly expensive looking office, a piece of sleek and professional kit. For those who spend a lot of time on their keyboard through the week, this is definitely one to keep in mind.
Score: 9.0 out of 10
Highlights: Good look; Good feel; Crown is great and useful
Lowlights: Low profile may irk some users; Battery life may be a bugbear for power users
Manufacturer: Logitech
Price: $299.95 AUD
Review conducted using a loaned Logitech CRAFT keyboard provided by the manufacturer.
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