Logitech G910 Orion Spark Keyboard Review

Overview

 

Some time ago we became aware that Logitech were not only developing a new mechanical keyboard but they were also developing their very own mechanical switches! Well that keyboard is now here in the pcG office and it is the all new Logitech G910 Orion Spark (claimed by Logitech to be the world’s fastest keyboard!). Describing the Orion Spark could take a while, so here I’ll just provide an overview: The G910 Orion Spark is a mechanical keyboard featuring Logitech’s Romer-G switches, with an actuation distance of just 1.5mm and an actuation force of just 45g. The switches also have asymmetric keycaps, in an aide to keep your fingertips centred. In addition to this the Orion Spark also features 16.8M colour (per key) back-lighting. There’s even an associated ARX Mobile App allowing you to track Game data, statistics etc on your phone, while a slot in the centre of the keyboard places this information right in front of you.

 

 

The Logitech G910 Orion Spark arrived at pcG in a large box, with a large image of the G910 on the front showing off its RGB lighting, with the star background accentuating the Orion theme. As you can see Logitech are keen to promote their Romer-G switches and also you can see that our sample features a UK English layout.

Looking at the back of the box, there’s another image of the G910 Orion Spark, cleverly showing off the skeleton structure within. The back of the box goes on to highlight the following (in various languages):

Opening the outer box reveals a rather smart black inner box, adorned with a cool blue recessed Logitech G logo.

 

 

In the box there’s rather less than you would think perhaps; other than the keyboard itself and the additional palm rest, there’s a Setup Guide and a Safety, Compliance and Warranty guide.

 

 

At the time of writing the Logitech G910 Orion Spark keyboard is retailing at Overclockers UK for approximately £160 and on Amazon for £159 and comes with a 2 year warranty.

 

Specifications/Features

courtesy of Logitech

* Additional details available here

 

First Impressions

 

First impressions of the Logitech G910 Orion Spark are pretty darn good, on face value the G910 is a good looking, somewhat stealthy looking Gaming keyboard, so it’s off to a good start. Let’s have a proper look around now…

 

 

Taking a look at the top left of the G910 we can see four on the fly macro keys (three for assigning macros to (M1-M3) and a macro record button (MR)) in the corner and the nine (4 at the top, 5 down the left) programmable G-keys (G1-G9). Lurking here we also can see a G logo, this illuminates (16.8 million colours) when the keyboard is powered up.

Over in the other corner (top right) we find the dedicated media controls, a brightness on/off button, volume control wheel and a volume mute button. To the left of the captive cable point, there’s another button (at this time I have no idea what it’s for!). Let’s talk about that rather nice looking volume wheel, that I assumed would feel like a modern weighted Hi-Fi volume control, but oh no! It free wheels with the slightest of touch and feels rather cheap and pathetic compared to the rest of the keyboard especially considering the keyboard’s high retail price! 🙁

 

 

Looking at the left hand side and the WASD area of the G910 Orion Spark, we can begin to appreciate those asymmetric keycaps! What does that even mean? Well the best way to answer that is probably just have a good, close and long look at the image below left! What you’ll (hopefully) see is that many of the keys in and around the WASD area feature funny angles! But these angles (even the ones on the CTRL, SHIFT, CAPS LOCK & TAB) keys are all designed to stop your finger slipping off the key-cap! The end result is that we have a keyboard that’s great for Gaming, but not good for typing. Personally I think it’s an awesome idea, and I take my hat off to Logitech for designing such a focused Gaming keyboard.

Lurking in the centre (ish) of the wrist rest there’s a cut-out with a small perspex window, and in the centre of that little window is a smart G910 logo. And that’s not all as this little windows has a trick up its sleeve… 😉

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Looking at the Logitech G910 Orion Spark from the side we can see how naturally flat the keyboard sits, but just check out those asymmetric keys and how the key-caps are lower in the middle of the keyboard, looks a little weird eh!?

Raising the feet at the back of the G910 lifts the back of the keyboard a little (too little in my mind), as the feet only raise the back approximately 10mm! To be honest on a premium keyboard (and with its premium price) I would have expected to have had the option of a couple of heights to choose from, especially as the lower priced competition often offer this…

In the centre of the back of the keyboard we find our eye immediately drawn to the bright blue ARX dock! Sounds and looks impressive, at first sight! But all it is a slot for a mobile phone, there’s no power or connection, it’s just a sliding holder!

Placing a mobile in it, makes it look a little more interesting, just wait until you pair the mobile ARX App with the keyboard, then things really start to get a little more interesting…

 

 

As you can see by default the G910 Orion Spark is equipped with a small wrist rest, but lurking in the box is another larger rest. Simply un-clip the two clips at the base of the keyboard and swap, easy!

 

 

Flipping the Logitech G910 Orion Spark over onto its back reveals very little. But what we can see are six rubberised feet, and the two back feet that can be raised to further incline the back of the keyboard. Note that these feet also feature rubber tips, to keep that keyboard from moving around during those intense Gaming moments.

 

 

There’s a lot to like about Logitech’s G910 Orion Spark, it looks good as a whole and I personally love and admire Logitech for thinking about those asymmetric, Gamer centric keycaps. But there’s a couple of issues that I’ve already identified; the feel of that volume wheel definitely is not in keeping with a premium keyboard such as this, the rear height adjustment for the keyboard is limited and (rather shockingly) there’s no USB ports. Now while normally this wouldn’t bother me too much, on a keyboard costing this much…

 

Hardware Installation

The Logitech G910 Orion Spark connects to your Gaming Rig by way of a single USB plug. This plug is found at the end of a 1.8m (surprisingly) non-braided cable. The cable is thin though and very flexible; and the reason it’s thin is because there’s no USB connectivity on the G910 itself!

Testing Methodology/Setup

 

The Logitech G910 Orion Spark was tested on my Test Rig, a fresh installation of Windows 7 Ultimate N 64bit (service pack 1) was performed prior to testing. As no software is provided with the G910 Orion Spark the latest Logitech Gaming Software was sourced from the Logitech website (here). Version 8.57.145_x64 was installed and used throughout testing.

 

The following games were used during testing:

• Survarium (BETA)
• Dying Light

 

Hardware Performance

 

BACKLIGHTING

 

With the G910 Orion Spark powered up, we can marvel at its 16.8 million colour back-lighting, marvellous it is too! If you have not seen the new RGB back lighting that is becoming more common on high-end keyboards, then you’re in for a treat, it really does look cool, and is certain to impress most people who see it. Unfortunately the images below don’t really do it justice…

 

 

The Logitech Gaming Software allows full (well not really, but more on this later) control over the illumination of the keyboard and there’s also a handful of predefined Modes and Effects. This ranges from a per key lighting setup (where any key you want can be lit using any colour), through to things like the impressive colour wave (see images below), where you can control direction and speed also.

 

 

KEYBOARD & SWITCHES

 

So we (here at pcG) have seen Cherry MX switches, Kailh switches and even Razer’s new mechanical switches… Well now we have Logitech’s take and the perfect Gaming switch; the Romer-G switch with its linear travel (i.e. there’s no bump or click) and its 1.5mm actuation distance and 45g of actuation force. With this in mind the Logitech Romer-G switch is most similar to the Cherry MX Red (no bad thing there then!). But what are they like to use?

In Game I really enjoyed using the Logitech G910 Orion Spark switches and found them to be very responsive, in fact one of the most responsive keyboards I have ever used. To that end the keyboard and the switch rewards accuracy, if you’re someone who tends to spam the keyboard then maybe this is not the board for you. But to be fair what Logitech have done with the keycaps comes to the rescue (a little). This is due to the cleverly designed asymmetric keycaps that feature facets on the caps themselves that stop you slipping off, especially around the WASD area. If you study the keyboard enough you’ll notice that there’s a handful of different keycaps, all designed around the concept of your hand being on those WASD keys. And personally in-game I think it works!

It’s a brave and risky move by Logitech, but it’s one I applaud. The downside is that the Logitech G910 Orion Spark is not a keyboard for typists. But, if there’s one thing I love about this job is when I see a product truly designed with the PC Gamer in mind… 🙂

Comfort is also good, with the Logitech G910 Orion Spark. Out of the two wrist rests supplied I preferred the larger one as it seems to offer more support, and was generally more comfortable for me. I would say that even with the feet raised at the back, I felt like the board could be inclined that little bit more, and to be honest, I’m a little shocked that there was only one level of height adjustment to choose from. Plenty of other manufacturers offer two and for far less money…

Overall though from a pure keyboard performance point of view it is very hard to fault the G910 Orion Spark keyboard and those new Romer-G switches.

 

SOFTWARE

 

The Logitech Gaming Software can be downloaded here, version 8.57.145_x64 was installed and used throughout testing.

The main tab (loading screen) screen shows a nice large, interactive image of the G910 Orion Spark. Selecting any of the highlighted areas (M1-M3 and any of the G1-G9 keys) takes you to the Customize G-Keys screen.

On the Customize G-Keys screen we can assign any number of commands to any one of the dedicated G keys (G1-G9). The odd thing is, that it seems to be the only keys (as they are the only ones that highlight) you can assign something to, so if you wanted to assign a Macro to say the Enter key you cannot! (EDIT: we actually you can but you have to do it manually, by creating a new Command and entering the values!). Here you can also create Profiles, five are supported at any one time, although many more can be stored away on your PC. To create a Profile you also have to bind it to a Game or executable, which I think is a little odd!

The Multi Key command (most of us know it as macro) can be called up via the Command Editor, here you can record and edit macros, recording delays between key presses or have them fixed at a predefined delay (25 milliseconds is the default).

 

 

The final Logitech Gaming screen that we will take a look at is the Input Analysis screen, here you can enable the Input Analysis function and study the resultant maps. Basically what it does is record all of you input via the keyboard and shows you a heat-map of either your key presses or the amount of time that key has been active for. It’s all pretty cool stuff, but it is a bit of a gimmick I think…

 

 

Of course this is not the only software that the Logitech G910 Orion Spark supports as there’s also the mobile ARX software. I must admit to thinking that this was another gimmick, but to be fair the software is very good and even useful. The software runs on your smartphone of choice (IOS or Andriod), and docks in the dock at the back of the keyboard. Various features are available, the best and most useful is the one that acts as a system monitor. This shows CPU speed, temp and core usage and then there’s a section for GPUs showing GPU and fan speed as well as GPU usage and VRAM usage, there’s also an overall system RAM usage meter too! Other features allow you to launch your Profiled Games as well as have full media and volume control. All pretty useful stuff, especially for guys like us here at pcG.

 

 

Overall the software is very good, there’s plenty of options and the software is relatively intuitive to use. I don’t like the fact that I need to bind a Game to be able to create a Profile though.

BUT: The thing I was really shocked at, was when I wanted to create a specific key illumination for a specific Game (i.e. just have those specific Game keys lit) and assign that to a Profile , I could not! I assumed at first that I just couldn’t work out how to do it, as surely (I thought) it must be possible. No! Apparently (after trawling some Logitech forums, where others are as disappointed as I) I discovered that Logitech will be adding this at a later date. I hope they do as for now it’s a massive issue for me… 🙁

 

Final Thoughts

 

One has to expect a lot from a keyboard costing £160 and to be fair the Logitech G910 Orion Spark delivers plenty, but it is let down by some odd software design decisions that allows the G910 to just fall shy of the mark…

The Logitech G910 Orion Spark came to pcG well packaged in a large box, but the un-boxing experience wasn’t as grand as one would expect for such a premium product. In the box there’s the keyboard, two wrist rests and some paperwork. Once out of the box the G910 Orion Spark immediately began to grow on me, there’s no doubt that it’s a seriously focused Gaming keyboard. The only let down with the physical keyboard is that volume control wheel, that looks like it’s one of those weighted Hi-Fi types. But it’s far from it and it spins way to easily for my liking, and feels cheap in comparison to the rest of the hardware.

One of the most important aspects of the G910 is Logitech’s Romer-G switches (similar to Cherry MX Red), they feature a 1.5mm actuation distance, requiring just 45g of force. The end result is a keyboard that’s happy to react to your input in the blink of an eye.

In Game I really appreciated the G910’s asymmetric keys and the Romer-G switches, in fact it’s probably one of (if not the) best Gaming hardware key/switch setups that I’ve tested. The Keyboard feels so responsive, but you need to be accurate as spamming this keyboard really doesn’t work…

The G910’s illumination is just brilliant, if you’ve not seen a 16.8 million colour RGB keyboard then you probably don’t know what your missing. But once you’ve seen one there’s no going back…

I could easily spend a lot of time talking about Logitech’s Gaming Software, that as a whole is feature rich and works well, with most of our Gaming needs supported. But there’s some oddities and one glaring omission. The omission is the basic fact that you cannot save lighting setups as part of your Profile, meaning that you cant have one lighting setup for one Game and another setup for a different Game!? For me this would have been one of the reasons that I wanted to buy a G910, as it seems to almost be advertised as a feature! But for me it would be the reason not to by one; for now that is, as Logitech claim the feature is on its way. Other issues like the fact I have to bind a Game to create a Profile also seems odd, as does the fact that I cannot seem to bind a command to any key on the keyboard other than one of the nine G-Keys, unless I do it manually!?

On the other hand the ARX software (that I wasn’t expecting too much from) was really rather cool, and genuinely useful. Seeing your PC Stats rising and falling while gaming looks great on a colour screen in front of your eyes, I can even launch my Profiled Games direct from my mobile…

The Logitech G910 Orion Spark could have been one of the best TRUE Gaming keyboards out there, and it still might just make it if they can improve the software support and fix that volume control wheel! Even if they do this, they still need to bring that price down a little more. £160, ouch!

 

UPDATE (11/03/2015): As of version 8.58 (with firmware 92.1.12) the G910 now supports per Profile backlighting control (woohoo!), and thanks Logitech.

 

Verdict

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Many thanks to Logitech for providing this sample for review