First Impressions: G15

So yeah, I'm enjoying a week-late X'Mas present to myself. I picked up a G15 (version 1 - the blue one) on December 24... needless to say, besides just plugging it into my parents computer to make sure all the keys worked, I didn't actually get to put it through its paces until now

So my first impressions after fooling around with it for about an hour or so?
Well, first of all, it's a pretty solid keyboard. And you can't really deny the inherent coolness of having a "gaming keyboard." I mean, forget the plain keyboard you "just get by with" this is a keyboard made for playing with, for crying out loud.

My second immediate thought was, "damn it, this thing is pretty big." I mean I'm used to having my keyboard on my lap (depending on the chair I'm in, of course) but at that LAN party last month, people looked at me funny when I told them I wouldn't need as much table space as everyone else. It's that additional keypad of macros keys on the left that gives it width. It also takes a moment to acclimate to the shape. I'm on those folks who rarely looks down at his keyboard, so I operate by touch, mostly. But now ALT+Tab and the ESC key down feel like their in the same place anymore. They're no longer at the left-most edge: the programmable macro keys are!

And what of that fancy LCD screen now that I've had some minor experience with it? Well, it's cute, but I don't see myself using it that much. I do feel ambitious and I think I will try the included SDK. I've already downloaded the Unreal Tournament patch that puts a running ammo count on the LCD. That's again, something cute, but why the hell would I take my eyes off the screen to look down at my keyboard?

And while Logitech has added a Dawn of War to the profiler software, Relic still hasn't patched it with any usefulness with the G15. That is, the G15's macro key profile manager is smart enough to recognize that have Dawn of War installed and will let me reserve a keyset for it. But I was really hoping for the LCD panel to, I dunno, tell me how many critical points were being captured or something.

So, uh, yeah... anybody want to do that?