logitech g11 alternative?

[burningforce]

Hey gang, have a question for you all.

For some reason my "L-Shift" and "3" keys are not working on my g11 keyboard. I took it apart and do not see anything that broke the keyboard.

What keyboard would you all recommend to replace my failed G11? I am looking for all of the following:

1 - not huge, but same size or a little smaller then the G11

2 - must have same or more extra buttons that the G11 offers

3 - Would like USB keyboard

4 - media controls is a must

5 - I am not looking to spend a whole lot, perhaps $75 or less

thanks for the help

[Emo?]

http://www.logitech.com/en-us/keyboards/keyboard/devices/5902 Good enought? :D

[MiRai]

http://www.logitech.com/en-us/keyboards/keyboard/devices/5902 Good enought? :D
It's on sale, too! $63 with free shipping. I could never go back to a rubber dome keyboard, though. :(

[burningforce]

thanks for the link, but it seems it has less keys then the G11 :(

Guess I could just find a G11 on ebay or upgrade to the updated version 510 for $10 more. Just thought there was a non-logitech keyboard that was awesome and had a longer then 1-year warranty to it.

plus I also just feel uneasy spending more then $40 on a keyboard that may only last a year or so =/

[Sam DeathWalker]

I been checking out some new keyboards in case my usb splitter actually works and am thinking this is best:

That 12 keys but you have have to press an extra key isnt so good. So basically you have 12 macro keys. This one has a lot more (34)


http://shop.steelseries.com/us/index.php/keyboards-us/merc-stealth-illuminated-gaming-keyboard.html


Has anyone used it what you think of it?

[MiRai]

Macro keys have never been a selling point for me. My left hand never leaves WASD and if I can't reach a key
with my fingers from there, it isn't getting pressed. It all comes down to how many buttons are on my mouse.

What do people put on those 12, 16, or 18 macro keys?

[Emo?]

I have my "turn off keymaps" key on G11 (press it with my littlefinger) works really well, dont think i could live without it. Also its good for buffs / DnD Macros etc etc. to not have to have shift+alt+crlt+G to dance or anything like that .)

[Lyonheart]

I have my "turn off keymaps" key on G11 (press it with my littlefinger) works really well, dont think i could live without it. Also its good for buffs / DnD Macros etc etc. to not have to have shift+alt+crlt+G to dance or anything like that .)

this! i have the closest Gkeys to my pinky finger for one button, on occasion presses.. like ghost wolf...dropping one type of totem and so forth. on the ones where i cant reach with my pinky, i have things like eating..mounting. buffs etc. i love the 18 extra keys!

I also use a logiteck G700 mouse. so i have lots of single button key presses!

[Sam DeathWalker]

What do people put on those 12, 16, or 18 macro keys?




My ISBoxerToolkitProfile.LastExported.xml file (in the Innerspace folder) is 919KB, I am runing out of keys a long time ago.

[zenga]

Razor has some (expensive though) awesome keyboards, with special hotkeys left of the spacebar, so you can set those as your modifier keys.

[MiRai]

Haha! Just as zenga said...

On a regular everyday keyboard (and especially those expensive Razer ones) there are ~102 keys. Let's take
away 10 of those keys because they're either modifiers or some random key you wouldn't or couldn't use. So,
92 keys multiplied by 19 combinations of left and right modifier keys (http://www.dual-boxing.com/showpost.php?p=301683&postcount=28) is 1,748 different combinations of keys
that can be set in ISBoxer (or any other multiboxing program that allows the use of both left and right modifier
keys).

For the sake of the argument that Warcraft does not differentiate between left and right modifiers this only
leaves us with 7 different combinations of Ctrl/Shift/Alt resulting in (92 * 7) approximately 644 different in
game bindings that could be set.

So... I find that using the argument that you're running out of keys on your standard keyboard is lame -- No
one needs the macro keys in order to survive. However, I do agree that they can be convenient at times but, I
just don't see the advantage over using, say, your NumPad instead of all those G keys in the case where
Logitech stops making the model you really, really wanted or you don't want to spend $120 for the current model.

[Sajuuk]

Nobody's suggested RMAing with Logitech? I've found they're really good with this type of thing. I had an out of warranty G11 that I spilled soda on, cleaned and had some issues with keypresses. I honestly didn't expect them to, but Logitech did the RMA and 'upgraded' me to a G110. I only had to pay shipping of the G11 to Logitech.


RMA THE SUCKER FOR A FREE UPGRADE.

[burningforce]

ah cool, thanks for that info sajuuk. I will get in touch with logitech and see what they say.

as for that many macro keys, I find it easier to map a key combination to a G-key with isboxer then having to push shift + numpad 1. I also play with a ideazon fang that I use for buffing and what not, I just can not move my hands fast and accurate enough to push key combinations in the heat of battle is what I am saying.

[David]

http://store.razerzone.com/store/razerusa/en_US/pd/productID.211324200

This is a sweet razer one. Thinking of getting that. My g15 is old by now, missing a key, missing some colors as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTRt-vBH2XI&feature=fvst
For some review, The guy tells how sensitive the keys are. Looks like a nice thing.

[MiRai]

Just a tip for everyone in this thread that doesn't like pressing CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+G and things like that...
everything can be remapped to whatever key, or combination of keys, you would like. To each their own, though.

http://store.razerzone.com/store/razerusa/en_US/pd/productID.211324200

This is a sweet razer one. Thinking of getting that. My g15 is old by now, missing a key, missing some colors as well.
That's the keyboard I moved to and like I said I won't go back to a rubber dome keyboard, my fingers like
mechanical keyboards way too much. I have yet to use the macro keys on it, though. :)

[Sam DeathWalker]

Ya well 600 plus combos are mostly taken up with the macros themselves (in IsBoxer the wow macros it makes does not have to tie to the actual key you press). Keep in mind that each step requires a different in game macro key set. So if you have IsBoxer Macros with long steps then you eat up a lot of those combos. 600 sounds like a lot but it isnt.

No one can remember "Was it alt-ctrl-1 or shift-alt-1" in the heat of battle, a spicific key is going to be a lot better. Not to mention taking your hand off the mouse if you have to isn't a smart idea eather.

Ya the Razar has mechanical keys which are way better but 34 seperate macro keys is the winner for me on the steelseries.

[MiRai]

Ya well 600 plus combos are mostly taken up with the macros themselves (in IsBoxer the wow macros it makes does not have to tie to the actual key you press). Keep in mind that each step requires a different in game macro key set. So if you have IsBoxer Macros with long steps then you eat up a lot of those combos. 600 sounds like a lot but it isnt.
ISBoxer's Quick Setup Wizard for World of Warcraft comes with less than 50 Keymaps if I'm not mistaken and
12 of those are for the FTL DPS keys which can be re-used per character set. So, unless you can come up with
~600 non Character Set Keymaps... you should never ever run out.

No one can remember "Was it alt-ctrl-1 or shift-alt-1" in the heat of battle, a spicific key is going to be a lot better. Not to mention taking your hand off the mouse if you have to isn't a smart idea eather.
Well, that was exactly what I was getting at when I said if I have to move my left hand away from WASD then
it isn't going to get used. 1-5, Q, E, R, F, Z, X and then include modifier keys paired up with those. Not to
mention the 13 buttons I have on my G700 mouse paired up with included modifier keys. I think I'm set and I
don't have to move my hands away from either WASD or the mouse.


Ya the Razar has mechanical keys which are way better but 34 seperate macro keys is the winner for me on the steelseries.
I would have liked to see the Anansi (http://store.razerzone.com/store/razerusa/en_US/pd/productID.220723800/categoryId.35156900) in a mechanical flavor with those buttons by the space bar.

[ElectronDF]

I have a G15 (original) and would never give it up. For me:
G1 party attack
G2 Pet attack only until in combat, then all attack
G3 Healer heal whoever has aggro
(90% of play is with these keys)
G4 PPT (push to talk on vent or WOW)
G5 Flying mount
G6 Ground mount
G7 Instant DPS movement (for DPS on the move in PVP)
G8 Random depending on group (hunters it is freezing trap, DKs and pallys it is taunt, locks it is deathcoil) all on round robin
G9 Spell Interrupt
G10-G12 Not used to much
G13 Buff (Smartbuff really helps to put buffs up)
G14 Jama-use 1
G15 Alts movement backward (used to stop them or move out of stuff)
G16 Accept All
G17 Jama-use 2
G18 Alts movement forward

I just got a X-Keys USB stick. I love it, just need to figure out where to put it. I use it for stuff I wish I could use Jamaba macros for. I want to do one thing on my main and have the alts do it, not keybind 16 things for seldom used stuff. I just want an easy /jamba-team LeaveBG or /Jamba-macro-healset to put on my healing set for my pallies, or /jamba-team-hearth. They don't need to be fancy, just simple stuff I use. I have used HKN to broadcast that in the past, and it worked okay, but now that the chat channel gets remembered, it locks in "/" slash so the next commands mess up. So I started up jamba-macro and made macros, bound them to jacked up keys CTRL-SHIFT-G, CTRL-SHIFT-H, etc and put them on my Xkeys.
Xkeys 1, invite
2) hearth
3) leave BG
4) blank
5) Outfitter BG set
6) Outfitter norm set
7) blank
8) Hunter pets 3 (stealth kitties for PVP), it is fun to sneak up with 5 cats they can't see (all Gondria)
9) Hunter pets 4 (all chimera, they have ranged slow and it is ROCKS hard, really fun)
10) blank
11-16) Jamab-use 1-5

[Sam DeathWalker]

I have 37 keymaps but most all of them have many steps, and each step might have different macros for each of the classes I play or at least different groups of characters (say all healers or all mages). So 37 keymaps with 10 steps each of 4 actions each is like 1300 combos ..... but ya some will be repeated. But I am pretty much at the 600 limit. For sure over 500.

But thats nothing to do with the keyboard, I am going to like having seperate keys, assuming my usb splitter works so I can hook the keyboard up to six computers at the same time.

[burningforce]

ok little update on my G11 situation. I have been communicating back and forth with a logitech "tech support person", he said that since my G11 is not under warranty anymore, there is nothing they can or will not want to do to fix it.

But he did offer to give me something called a "customer loyalty code" which grants 50% off a purchase from the logitech store. Of coarse there are some restrictions for using this code, but the G510 is $100 atm and has the same amount of keys as the G11. my worry is the keyboard will crap out a little after warranty like my G11 did and I would have wasted another $50-$60 for something that did not last. Just wish those cheap usb numpad keypads were programmable hehe.

[flux1]

Just wish those cheap usb numpad keypads were programmable hehe.

I found something today I was going to make a thread on, but since it relates to this I'll post it here.

I found a program called HID Macros http://www.hidmacros.eu/ that allows input from multiple usb devices of the same type on a system to be filtered into different commands. Has anyone out there used it any before?

The main purpose seems to be for flight simulators to use extra keyboards for different macros in them. Of course the macro part would be flagged by blizzard, but using it to map single keys from an external device like a numpad connected to your system may be worth using. On my system it shows a numpad I had laying around as kbd1, my G keys as kbd2, and the main section of my G11 as kbd3. With numlock on, it shows input from the numpad correctly. A couple keys I set to single letters worked fine in notepad for a quick test.

The usb devices will likely be different on everyone's machines since no two are the same. However it might be usable for turning cheap usb keypads into x-keys work-a-likes without needing another networked system like HKN does.

[ElectronDF]

I bought a G15 (orginal) about 2-3 months after it came out. I liked it so much, I bought another to have a backup. Time went on and they said they weren't going to sell the original one anymore and they changed the number of keys (6 instead of 18) and the screen (non-moveable---alignable). I bought one since I wanted to see the WOW stuff on my other computers (bag space, shards---for locks, ammo, etc). It was smaller, but I would never use it on my main, I can't give up the 18 G-keys. Next the Logitech forums, which I read weekly for software and hardware info (pretty much only reading gaming forum) mentioned they would sell off their remaining G15 original keys new. They had kept some due to warranty replacements. Everyone on the forums /cheered since they didn't like the less keys on the new G15. I bought 5. Yeah, it is overkill, but it took like 2-3 years for a G510 to come out, so having a replacement for something I didn't want to do without was very important. Right now, I have 5 computers, main has G15 original, 2 PCs have G15 ver 2 and 2 Mac have Apple wireless keyboards (the ones without the numpads to take up less room).

So if you are worried about your item breaking, and you really like it and want to keep it, buy a backup. Again, if you have money for boxing, you might have money for stuff that makes playing fun.