Logitech is getting into the macro pad game with its new MX Creative Console, facing off against established players like Elgato, Razer, and Cooler Master. The Swiss firm's two-piece device is marketed towards Adobe Creative Cloud users, especially those who spend hours on Photoshop, Premiere Pro, or Lightroom Classic daily. According to Logitech MX General Manager Anatoliy Polyanker (via Business Wire), “The MX Creative Console is designed to help people redefine their workflow, enabling them to work smarter and faster.”
The MX Creative Console has two primary parts — a wired keypad with nine primary LED display keys and two arrow keys for navigating between pages, plus a dial pad that has a massive knob, a jog wheel, and four extra buttons. You can pretty much program all the buttons to suit your particular needs, but the company has worked closely with Adobe so that it will work straight out of the box with apps like Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, and Premiere Pro.
At $200, the MX Creative Console is quite an expensive device, especially as you can get a Stream Deck starting at just $60. There are also other options in that price range, like the Razer Stream Controller or the Elgato Stream Deck Plus. However, Logitech is the only one of these big-name firms to offer the dial pad and keypad combination, which makes it highly suitable for creatives working with Adobe apps. The other competitors are more focused on live streaming and audio production, so you’ll have to spend a lot of time configuring them to make them suitable for visual creative workflows.
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The Cooler Master MasterHUB is the nearest competitor to the MX Creative Console, but the complete modular kit costs double at $399 and it’s still in the Kickstarter stage at the time of writing (although we expect shipments to begin this month). Furthermore, since it’s not explicitly made for Adobe app workflows, you may have to spend a good amount of time discovering how to program the shortcuts for each app.
While this MX Creative Console is perfect for Adobe users, you might find it lacking if you prefer other apps. You’ll have to customize the console yourself if you want to use it with non-Adobe programs, like DaVinci Resolve or GIMP. Alternatively, you could download plugins via the Plugin Marketplace in Logitech Options+ app to make the MX Creative Console work more seamlessly with select apps like Spotify, Capture One, and Zoom. However, you’ll have to wait for Logitech to see if and when it will release plugins for popular Adobe alternatives.
