Logitech, Matured: The G810 Orion Spectrum Mechanical Keyboard

Logitech G announced the latest member of its peripherals family, the Logitech G810 Orion Spectrum, a neatly-designed RGB keyboard sporting the company’s own Romer-G switches. We’ve seen a few Logitech G keyboards before with Romer-G switches on board, but where they were built in a more wild-looking, “look at my crazy keyboard” style, the G810 Orion Spectrum is classier and more buttoned up.

It has a straightforward all-black, strictly rectangular chassis, with a shiny ring around its body, with key caps that are more traditionally shaped that the angular ones found on the G910 Orion Spark. Where the G810 Orion Spectrum pops is in its RGB lighting.

You can apply a number of lighting effects, from wave to individual key press to static and so on; choose the direction of the “flow” (horizontal, vertical, or from the center out); adjust the speed of any light features; and set lighting on individual keys, cluster of keys, or all of the keys. Further, being an RGB device, you can select incredibly specific colors.

You can also load up game-specific profiles to use pre-programmed lighting effects.

If you’ve used any mechanical keyboard lately, the first thing that will pop out at you when you sit down to type on the G810 Orion Spectrum is that the switches sound downright muted. It’s a soft sound and attack on top of soft-touch key caps. It’s like the difference between the sound and feel of footfalls on concrete versus on snow. One downside, though, is that although the key noise is minimal, the spring noise is all too apparent.

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The G810 Orion Spectrum has several dedicated buttons, including playback controls, a brightness button, mute/unmute, and a Gaming Mode button. (It took me way too long to notice that the image on the button was a joystick.) There’s a large barrel roller on the upper right side of the keyboard for volume control, too.

This design leaves the F keys free from dedicated double duty, so you can assign them other functions, such as macros, through the software. The associated software offers a number of capabilities in addition to the aforementioned macro programming and lighting features. For example, you can also create and manage profiles, see your own personal heat map of key presses, and more.

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We've been impressed with Logitech's Romer-G switches (and its G-Labs testing facility), but the G810 Orion Spectrum shows something a little more -- a classed-up, more mature design, which should appeal to a wider array of users. 

The G810 Orion Spectrum will be available in the U.S. and Europe this month for $159 and €189, respectively.

MORE: Tom's Hardware Tours Logitech's G-Labs Peripherals Testing Facility In Switzerland

Seth Colaner is the News Director for Tom's Hardware. Follow him on Twitter @SethColaner. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.