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LOGITECH INTRODUCES GAME-CHANGING GAMEBOARD

Logitech G13 Advanced Gameboard Features Naturally Contoured Design, Onboard Memory, Customizable Backlighting

FREMONT, Calif. — Dec. 10, 2008 — Whether you’re rescuing hostages, on a quest with your guild or saving humanity, you don’t want to worry about hand fatigue or hitting the wrong key. Today, Logitech introduced the Logitech® G13 advanced gameboard – a hybrid gaming keyboard designed to complement your Logitech keyboard and mouse – giving you game-changing comfort and control on a Mac® computer or a PC.

“If you’re into serious gaming, there’s no better feeling than playing with the G13 gameboard by your side,” said Ruben Mookerjee, Logitech’s director of product marketing for gaming. “Unlike other gameboards that focus only on programmability, the G13 advanced gameboard incorporates the principles of our award-winning Comfort Wave design. So whether you’re getting into World of Warcraft® or walking into your next LAN party, the G13 gameboard gives you a powerful advantage over those forced to work with less.”

With its sculpted, ergonomically inspired shape and pushing-the-envelope functionality, the Logitech G13 advanced gameboard completes your search for gear, augmenting a Logitech® G15 keyboard for gaming and a Logitech® G9 Laser Mouse.

Delivering increased comfort, the iconic contoured design complements the natural shape of your hand and fingers, while the smooth, concave home-row keys make it easy to locate buttons by touch. With three game modes, 25 programmable keys and a programmable analog stick, the G13 gameboard offers up to 87 ways for you to control your game (software installation required). And you can set up custom button-profiles for each one of your favorite titles. You can even create macros on the fly without having to pause your game.

And for another tactical advantage, the 160-by-43-pixel GamePanel LCD shows live game stats, system info and even messages from other players.

With the G13 gameboard, you’ll also get backlit keys that help you easily locate the right key in low-light conditions or lights-out play. And you can select from hundreds of available backlight colors, so your gameboard looks just the way you want it.

A handy solution for the laptop gamer, the G13 gameboard includes onboard memory, letting you program up to five ready-to-play profiles and take them with you to your next LAN party. The G13 gameboard also offers pre-configured settings for many popular games, including World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade, Lord of the Rings Online™: Shadows of Angmar™, Call of Duty® 4: Modern Warfare™ and many others.

With its sturdy weight and strategically placed feet, the G13 gameboard won’t move during gameplay, giving you rock-solid support all the way to victory.

Pricing and Availability

The Logitech G13 advanced gameboard is expected to be available in the U.S. and Europe in December for a suggested retail price of $79.99 (U.S.).

 

[kittel]

clearly designed for WoW. There was a WoW laptop Dell made that had the LCD stat screen also.

 

[gottalovetheglove]

pics

Are you fucking serious? The G15 is inordinate enough (<3 mine though), this is just insane. Do people really need this? Not to mention looking with a stick is fail (I assume that's what the stick is for).

clearly designed for WoW. There was a WoW laptop Dell made that had the LCD stat screen also.

the WASD keys and the little stick made me think it was for FPS's at first, but all the macro keys and the LCD screen are starting to make me lean towards this. I still stand by my opinion of this being completely over-the-top.

 

[Click]

Woa... $79.99. That's more than what I paid for my G15 full keyboard, lol.
Looks pretty nice though.

 

[Xyphie]

clearly designed for WoW.

Not enough buttons for me.

 

[Somnid]

Looks awesome except for the price tag. I'll maybe pick on up when it drops in price.

 

[Vorador]

Not bad, but too pricey. At 30-40$ i may bite, at 80$ it's too much.

 

[gottalovetheglove]

Engadget China has spotted an accompanying keyboard for the G13, the G18. The LCD screen from the G15 seems to have been transplanted onto the G13 while the G18 sports a colour screen. It also has the same number of G keys as the first version of the G15 (12), unlike the reduced number found in later versions (6).

 

[Chris R]

Not bad, but too pricey. At 30-40$ i may bite, at 80$ it's too much.

Same thing here, though I do love my G11.

Also would kinda like to see how this works on a PS3.

 

[Davidion]

Price aside, that looks pretty sleek...but the ergonomics look crap.

Honestly, I really wish Belkin just made an updated version of the Nostromo with more and maybe "clackier" keys, without fucking shit up like they did with the black/blue version that came out within the past year.

I love my Nostromo; the thumb bar could use a bit more word and I REALLY wish they had at least another row of keys. Other than that, the ergonomics and overall feel are next to perfect for a PC gaming keypad.

 

[pizzaguysrevenge]

Why can't they make a full size keyboard with an analog stick?

 

[faceless007]

I don't play WoW so maybe it's not for me, but all those buttons in different positions than a standard keyboard (I mean, relative to WASD) just means to me that it'll be a bitch to configure and "learn" when playing games.

The thought of having to spend 20 minutes mapping buttons to commands--to say nothing of macros--and then trying to make myself remember them while playing a game isn't that appealing.

<3 my nostromo n52

 

[SapientWolf]

Price aside, that looks pretty sleek...but the ergonomics look crap.

Honestly, I really wish Belkin just made an updated version of the Nostromo with more and maybe "clackier" keys, without fucking shit up like they did with the black/blue version that came out within the past year.

I love my Nostromo; the thumb bar could use a bit more word and I REALLY wish they had at least another row of keys. Other than that, the ergonomics and overall feel are next to perfect for a PC gaming keypad.

I bought one for $5 awhile back and I was pretty happy with it. Works great for RTS games. The ability to switch layouts with a button helped alleviate issues with the lack of keys. The macros can be very powerful if you have the patience to put some time into them. The software alone was well worth the asking price.

 

[Davidion]

I bought one for $5 awhile back and I was pretty happy with it. Works great for RTS games. The ability to switch layouts with a button helped alleviate issues with the lack of keys. The macros can be very powerful if you have the patience to put some time into them. The software alone was well worth the asking price.

The software was/is easy to use, the macros relatively simple and not even entirely time-consuming to setup. There's no absurd complication to any of it. While the pad is borderline useless for southpaws, that fact itself makes it a wonderfully comfortable keypad for right-handers. Dare i say there hasn't ever been much of a competitor for it's simple usability? Hell, this thing would be good even for office work/data processing use given a reasonable enough circumstance.

From what I understand, the black/blue "tournament edition" managed to completely fuck up the software front, while making the keys less responsive yet bigger, where their size was never much of an issue in the first place?! It's a good thing my pleasantly tacky looking black/grey/orange n52 is doing me just fine.

 

[Swifty]

I used to have a Belkin N52 Nostromo. However, I felt the potential of not having to use the WASD keys was wasted since the D-pad on the Nostromo was positioned in an awkward angle such that you couldn't depress the D-pad for too long or else the device would start sliding away from the force of your thumb. I ended up relegating the D-pad to jumping, toggling crouch, and toggling prone in FPSes. It would've been nice to simply map all movement to that single 8 way switch rather than tie up four separate buttons on the N52 but the ergonomics of the device prevented that.

I ended up trading the N52 for a Saitek Pro Gamer Command Unit which has a built in analog stick for thumb use. I mapped WASD to it thereby freeing up four buttons for more commands and I haven't looked back ever since. It's even better for games that support mapping analog axes to movement. I wished that more of these PC keyboard replacement gamepads would come with analog sticks. I'm pretty excited that Logitech is following suit.

 

[Icomeinpeace]

I have the n50 and n52, the keys and ergonomics are better on the n50 but the layout and extra keys are better on the n52, I would never pay that much for a gameboard, even a n50 is more than sufficient, after getting a nostromo I really can't go back to play with a PC keyboard, wished Belking made the n54 already since other companies can't get these pads right.

 

[Icomeinpeace]

I ended up relegating the D-pad to jumping, toggling crouch, and toggling prone in FPSes.

That's the point of it! Even the 03, 07,08 and 09 keys have direction arrows for that reason.