September 21st, 2007
Friday Rant - Logitech G15 gaming keyboard
Who wants a gaming keyboard that sucks up to 90MB of RAM?
A while back we picked up a Logitech G15 gaming keyboard for the PC Doc HQ. This is a keyboard aimed specifically at gamers. It has 18 macro keys, a monochrome backlit LCD screen and backlit keys. It sure is a sweet looking keyboard.
Now, it’s a cool keyboard that does a lot, but all that functionality comes at a price - a load of supporting applications need to be running, and when we took a look at what the overhead was for this apps (which control the screen and macros) we were shocked to discover how much RAM they sucked up. Depending on the system we tried, we found that these supporting apps consumed between 60MB and 90MB of RAM. No matter how you cut it, that’s a lot of RAM.
Now, I know that there’s no way to gain functionality without some consumption of resources, but 60-90MB just for a few keyboard related applications sounds like far too much to me. I’m pretty sure that with some effort on Logitech’s part this could be tightened up significantly - after all, don’t gamers want that RAM for something more important?
Needless to say, we’re left with the keyboard, but all the apps have been disabled.
Thoughts?
Adrian is a technology journalist and author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology. He also runs a popular blog called The PC Doctor. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations
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