Logitech G515 LIGHTSPEED TKL

Logitech has a couple TKL keyboards in their lineup and a new one today is being added that offers a low profile setup and great battery life. The Logitech G515 Lightspeed TKL takes an incredibly thin design paired with wireless Lightspeed and Bluetooth connection options along with the key customization introduced in the Pro X 60 that I reviewed a few months ago.

The G515 Lightspeed TKL is a thin tenkeyless wireless keyboard with RGB backlit keys and support for Logitech’s KeyControl customization that was introduced with the Pro X 60. The G515 Lightspeed TKL, as the name suggests, doesn’t have the number pad, but unlike the Pro X 60, it does still keep the arrow keys and Home, Del, End area as well.

Two colors are available to this keyboard, white and black. Logitech was kind enough to send the white one over and it’s got a nice look with a white face accented by the gray bar at the top and on the underside. Along with two colors, the G515 TKL can come in either a tactile brown switch or a linear red switch. Each one offers a 1.3mm actuation point with a travel distance of 3.2mm and are of the low profile design. As far as actuation force, the browns are slightly more at 45 gf while the reds are 43 gf. What I received to review were the browns. I do a lot of programming and writing besides gaming, so I like the tactile keys myself, but there’s the smoother variation available for you to purchase.

The keyboard measures 368mm in length and 150mm in width. For thickness not taking into account the height of the keys, we have a measurement of 9.45mm at its thinnest which sits closest to you, all the way to 17.59 mm at the gray part of the keyboard. These were taken with my pair of calipers that I use with my 3D printing projects. With the keys, the maximum thickness is roughly 21.36 mm at the top most row with 18.29 mm on the first row of keys. So overall, a pretty thin package all around for the G515 weighing in at 880 g.

Holding the G515, it does feel like a pretty solid keyboard. Because of the thinness in nature, a lot of it is packed in and the construction makes it feel like it’s built well. It takes a good amount of strength to even bend it a little when I have my hands on either side of it.

Each of the keycaps has a nice slight texture feel to them and the letters and symbols offer a see through design where the RGB shines nicely through them. There’s a little bit of light bounce back onto the keyboard surface itself so you get a subtle color effect underneath each key. It’s not overly bright, but the light coming through is clean.

Now unlike the G60 X Pro, you can change the keycaps out on the G515 Lightspeed. Logitech says any low profile should fit thus no full height keys can be used here. I didn’t have other low profile keycaps on hand, but it’s good that the G515 offers some customization options in this area for those who want to make it a little more stylish.

With some people criticizing Logitech’s last offering about the key wobbliness and lack of sound dampening, Logitech has included a sound dampening foam layer to the G515 and stabilizers to the G515. For me, the key wobbliness here is more than acceptable, which is very slight and sound wise, it does seem quieter. It is definitely a lot quieter than the Pro X 60.

On the upper left part of the keyboard are three round buttons. One is used to switch to the Lightspeed wireless connection. Another is to switch to Bluetooth. As with previous wireless keyboards, the G515 supports connecting to two different devices wirelessly using each wireless option. The third button disables the Windows keys so you can play games without accidentally bringing up the taskbar. Each button has a nice little LED light next to it that turns on when activated for a little bit except the game button where it stays on to let you know you’re safe to game without keyboard interruptions.

Over the back side are the USB-C connections and the power switch. If your keyboard runs out of battery, you can plug in the included USB-C cable, which has a generous length of 1.8m or 5.9 feet to charge as well as use in wired mode. So the keyboard is still usable even if there’s no power left, but the battery does last for a good bit.

With all the lights on and using Lightspeed connection, the keyboard is rated for up to 36 hours of usage. In my testing, it did come to around that as I charged the keyboard Monday morning and didn’t need to charge again until Thursday in the afternoon using it for my daily programming activities and gaming in the evening. You can extend it even further if you dim the RGB lighting by 50%, which Logitech says will net you up to 120 hours, or an extra 333% in runtime. If you turn RGB completely off, Logitech is saying you can get up to 625 hours, which is pretty insane. And all this in a thin 17.59mm chassis. The G515 Lightspeed won’t die quickly on you and offers a pretty impressive amount of battery power for you to game and work on.

One thing missing in this keyboard is a volume dial. There are media controls and they are labeled under the F9-F12 keys along with the print, lock, and p/b keys. You’ll need to hold down the function key to access them, but I really miss a volume dial. The Pro X 60 had a nice dial located on the side near your left pinky that was really convenient, but having to use function keys to adjust the volume is not as good of an experience. Having quick, fine control using a dial will always trump function keys to control volume.

On the bottom is a nice little alcove to hold the USB receiver should you want to travel with the G515. Besides five strips of soft rubber that keeps the keyboard from sliding around, there are two legs that can fold out to tilt the keyboard. Two levels of tilt are available so you can adjust it some to be more comfortable for your typing position. I personally liked having the largest tilt option and had no problems typing on it that way.

For the past week and so I’ve been using the G515 Lightspeed as my daily driver for both work and play. During the time I used the keyboard programming in Visual Studio and doing my other daily activities, I found the typing to be solid once I got used to the profile. For some reason I would constantly hit the backslash key above the enter key a lot, but after a few days I finally was able to get my muscle memory down not to. It’s weird because the G515 has a standard ANSI layout and spacing seems pretty much the same as the G910, which is the keyboard I’ve been using for many years now. In any case, after the initial typing faux pas, I was finally able to get through a few days of programming without any issues and found it to be pretty easy and comfortable to type on.

During the evenings, I fired up a few games to relax and the G515 Lightspeed worked flawlessly. I primarily used the Lightspeed connection to test both gaming and work and playing games like Fallout 76 and Helldivers 2 to name a few, the G515 Lightspeed produced pretty good results in responsiveness and reliability. The keys produced good feedback when actuated and the slight texture on top was comfortable on the fingertips. Now, I haven’t used any keyboards with rapid trigger keys so I don’t have a comparison on that to go by, but for what I see here it was pretty good with the G515 Lightspeed.

I won’t go too much into detail about the KeyControl as you can read about it in my Pro X 60 review, but you have great control over binding almost any key to a different command, macro, or function. It’s a good piece of software that can tailor the keyboard to your liking.

Logitech’s G Hub is also where you can set up the various RGB effects for the G515 Lightspeed TKL. For those that enjoy some good color effects, the color shines really well through the keys and you can create your own animation effects if you don’t like the preset ones presented to you.

Coming in at $139, the G515 Lightspeed TKL isn’t priced too bad for what it offers, but it might be on a tad more expensive side of things. If you prefer a wired version, one will be available in the near future for $99, which is a nice amount of savings if you go with one that is always attached to your computer. Overall, I like the design, the weight, and the feel of the keys. The performance is pretty good and it lasts a bloody long time on a charge. If you don’t need the numpad, you can save some space on your desk and get the G515 Lightspeed TKL as your everyday keyboard.