Home > Consumer Reviews > Logitech Wireless Keyboard K350

My K350 came yesterday and I'm quite pleased, in contrast to the other review. I've been using PCs since 1980, so I've typed on a bunch of keyboards, all the way back to the original IBM PC and a handful of DEC and other terminal boards. This is the first "wave" keyboard that I've used, but not the first with an attached palm rest.

GENERAL:
The feel of the entire unit is solid, and the keys seem to have a good response. (It's not as solid as my Northgate OmniKey, but nobody has made mainstream metal keyboards for over a decade.) The keys seemed to be spaced and sized much like any other keyboard, then I measured. The keys on my basic Dell keyboard are 3/4" square, nearly flat, and touch each other. These keys are separated, deeper like an older keyboard, and just about 5/8" square, though there is enough space between them that they are almost 3/4" from center to center. My conclusion is that these keys are, indeed, typical in size and spacing. The wave shape makes the positions a bit different fom what I'm accustomed to, but not enough to cause me problems.

The palm rest is lightly padded and I find it quite comfortable, though for me it is a wrist rest as I have small hands -- 6 1/2" from base to fingertip. There are two feet on the back for either a 4° or an 8° angle lift. BTW, when the keyboard is flat on the desk the front edge of the palm rest is 7/8" off the desktop in the middle where you wouldn't have your hands. Where your hands go, it is 5/8" off the desktop. I must also say that my wrists are beginning to feel a wee bit chaffed, but, since I don't do that much typing any more, my habits have become lax, and I know I'm moving my hands around when I should be leaving them in place. Looking at the bottom, I'd say that the palm rest could be removed and recovered with other material, but you would have to put it back on or the base of the keyboard would stick out.

DIMENSIONS: about 19" by 10 1/8" at the widest part of the wave.

POWER: 2 AA batteries, included; on/off switch on the underside; battery monitor when you press a function key, but the picture is misleading. The picture looks as if the battery light shows you the level of power, which it does not. However, there is a tab in the SetPoint software that will at least tell me that my brand new batteries are "good." Right now the battery light is green. When you first power up the keyboard, the battery light will turn green if the batteries are good. I tried putting in a couple used batteries to see if the light has another color to tell you the batteries are low, but I couldn't find a combo that gave me anything but green or no light.

PROGRAMMABILITY:
The black set of keys at the top center that control volume and pause/play/stop/ff/rev cannot be reprogrammed.

Ten of the 12 function keys (document, spreadsheet, calendar, 3 unassigned, browser, messaging, e-mail, search) can be reprogrammed using the SetPoint software; only F11 (battery light) and F12 (CD/DVD eject) cannot. You can program the keys to: launch a program; open a file, a folder or a web page; show a custom menu; perform a keystroke combination; do nothing (very useful if you don't want to perform the default action but haven't anything else to assign to the key); or perform another of the preprogrammed actions. When you launch a program with a function key, the name of the program flashes on the screen briefly to tell you what you just started. The original set up is that you have to press the "Fn" key at the bottom right with the function key to get the special, programmed function; however, you can change it so that you press a function key alone to get a special function and have to press Fn to get the normal function key.

Of the 8 silver specialty keys, only the zoom key on the left cannot be reprogrammed. The silver "PC" key on the top far right can be changed, but in a more limited fashion. It will sleep the PC, restart, shut down, log off, or do nothing. The other 6 can be programmed the same way as the 10 function keys. That gives you a total of 16 keys that can be very flexibly programmed. I find that quite useful.

You can choose to disable the caps lock, num lock, scroll lock, Windows start, and insert keys so that you can't accidentally press them. You can also choose to have a sound play when you do press any of them, and/or have a notice flash briefly on the screen to tell you what state they are now in. There are no num lock or caps lock lights on the keyboard itself to tell you when they are on.

RECEIVER EXTENDER CABLE: I wondered about that one and couldn't find info on Logitech's site. It's a 5' USB cable that you can use to extend the range of the receiver plug. Plug the receiver in this cable, then the cable into the PC, stretch out the cable and your PC is now that much closer to your keyboard. On the other hand, I walked to the end of my room, about 15', and reception was still fine without the extender cable. I presume it's intended for use with large screen TV setups in big rooms or projection/lecture setups, because by the time you get far enough away to need it you can't see a normal PC screen. Well, *I* can't, anyway.

"UNIFYING": If you actually read the info about the devices with "unifying" technology on either the Amazon pages or the Logitech site, you will quickly realize that Logitech's "unifying" technology is new and does not work with older mice and keyboards, and that there are only a few keyboards and mice out for it at the moment. Oh, well. I guess I wasn't surprised at all that because I already had two Logitech wireless mice and neither worked with the other's receiver. I thought that was dumb till I realized that if they did speak to each other's receivers and you had two PCs in the same room using those mice, might both mice be controlling the cursors on both machines? No doubt the new tech has a way of identifying the devices and linking them to a particular machine to prevent a problem like that. I have an Anywhere mouse on order, which is one of the ones that has "unifying," so I'm delighted with the idea. Not only fewer cords, but also fewer USB dongles. Life is good.

I've ordered this product and haven't received it yet, but I want to give a warning to folks. The "unifying" function only works on a select few devices. Although the Logitech website and the product descriptions everywhere say that it will work with a huge number of Logitech's wireless devices (certainly the older ones, right? WRONG), it only works with a small handful of products--all of which are new.
As of this writing, the K350 is the only wireless keyboard that works with unifying. I found this out the hard way when I was unable to use my 3200 MX cordless keyboard with the unifying receiver that came with my Performance Mouse MX. Total bummer. Especially since the 3200 MX is a great business keyboard. Obviously if you buy this keyboard, the unifying receiver won't work with your non-unifying mice. Check out the Logitech website BEFORE you buy to make sure you know what works and what doesnt.
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UPDATED BELOW AFTER RECEIPT:
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Well, I received the keyboard and have been using it for about a week (see previous "review" re unifying).
The keyboard is, quite simply put, largely an ordinary keyboard. The "wave" form is not very pronounced, and it is not close enough to overcome the letdowns over my MX 3200 keyboard.

The keyboard looks and feels like a slightly-better-than-cheap keyboard. The typeface on the keys does not give it a professional, business look, unlike the MX 3200 keyboard's typeface, look, and design.

One of my biggest gripes is the height of the wrist rest. Its slope does not taper down gently to the desk, but instead starts seemingly over a full inch from the desk (take a peak at the 4th and 6th Amazon photo of the keyboard to get a sense of it). The thing is really quite high and takes much getting used to. The MX 3200's wrist/palm rest, by contrast, slopes all the way down to the desk nicely and evenly, connecting with the desk in a fluid slope, and its profile is much lower, making it ergonomically much better feeling, not to mention better looking.

The change from the sensor zoom to the push-button zoom on the left side of the keyboard is a welcome change, as simply letting a sheet of paper tough the left side of the keyboard on the MX 3200 will result in your document zooming in or out--way too sensitive to the point that it's better to disable it. But I found using the zoom on this keyboard actually quite useful.

As I mentioned in the prior post, I bought a Logitech Performance Mouse MX. My desktop-replacement laptop has only 2 USB ports, so I really had to purchase a Unifying-compatible keyboard so as not to use up both ports. If there were actually any choices for cordless keyboards that worked with Logitech's new "Unifying" receiver, then I'd consider buying something else. There will no doubt be an actual business keyboard that looks good coming out over the next year or two as Logitech expands its Unifying line. But since there is only one other wireless keyboard that uses the Unifying receiver--the K340 (which actually looks better than the K350 but doesn't appear to have any dedicated media keys)--the K350 is, unfortunately, the only choice.

I've waited for a while now for somebody to come up with this idea of a unifier receiver but finally it has arrived, you would think that Bluetooth would be good enough for this task but I guess it isn't...

In any case, I just bought this keyboard and the Performance mouse, and I have to agree with other people's review, the keyboard does feel a bit cheap, the typeface feels like it was made for children and the keyboard is very "FAT" (for lack of a better word). But comfortable overall...

I'm a bit disappointed in Logitech, I was on the market to buy A LUXURIOUS keyboard, something with titanium plating, or leather bound... maybe with keys that light up or a color display, but instead I'm left with this keyboard, the most expensive one they have (if you want wireless). It's a shame they don't have one solution that has all the features (for a price of course).

anyway, solid buy, you won't regret it (probably).

Great wireless keyboard for the money @ $53. [I have used this in conjuction with a Logitech Anywhere MX mouse, $70, and a M305 mouse, $30. If you are looking for a mouse too, the M305 is a great option that can share a nano USB receiver, unless you need the dark field capabilities that allow a laser mouse to work on glass].

The Logitech Setpoint software is easy to use, relatively intuitive, and allows for customization of numerous keys. The sleep button on the K350 actually works on my HP Media Center desktop (unlike the Microsoft Wireless Comfort 4000 I bought a while back).

The keyboard is a little flatter and less curved than I would prefer, but that seems to be inline with all of the manufacturers today. It just feels a bit more cramped than the old Microsoft Natural that is still my favorite wired ergonomic keyboard.

Love the nano USB receiver and Unifying software. Was looking for the capability to quickly transfer keyboard and mouse functionality between a desktop and a laptop without having multiple devices and this fit the bill nicely. Unifying software has to be loaded to link more than one device to a nano USB receiver. Transfering a device to different nano USB receiver on a different pc was as simple as switching the device off and back on again using the easily accessible on/off switch.

FYI, REGARDING SOFTWARE AND MICE: Interestingly settings in both the Microsoft control panel and Logitech Setpoint software affect the mouse simultaneously. For example, increasing pointer speed and/or acceleration in both has a multiplying affect on the Logitech wireless mouse and it becomes almost too fast. Have noticed a few times where mouse settings do not seem to fully save and may disappear on reboot, but have not had time to investigate when this is happening or potential causes. Seems to be more prevalent on my Vista desktop, but not an issue with the XP laptops I have tried them out on.

Great things about this keyboard:
- Very lightweight
- Slight keyboard wave, fits hands naturally
- COmfortable faux leather wrist rest, my carpeled wrists feel good at last!!
- Plug and Go! I have Vista, I plugged in the adapter and was typing less than 2 minutes later.
- Lots of very configurable functionality, set up the keys your way!
- Slightly sensitive keys make for very fast typing

Cons:
- Keyboard is light, but not small. It won't fit in my computer bag.

Other:
- Runs on 2 AA batteries, shipped with duracells
- you can also run a logitech mouse (or any 6 logitech products) off the same tiny receiver
- Don't lose the receiver, it's very small

So far, this is my favorite keyboard ever. Highly reccommended!