Our Verdict
What could have been a promising keyboard, offering some gaming-oriented features and nice lighting for a mid-range price tag, is unfortunately let down by how its keys feel. They might be nicely clacky, but they're incredibly stiff and not tactile in the traditional sense.
For
- Clacky sound
- Nice lighting
Against
- Stiff switches
- Feels like membrane
- Plastic construction
- Loud
- Better options for the price
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Logitech has expressed its desire to have its 'G3' products constitute its 'affordable'—but not necessarily budget—range of PC gaming peripherals. Given the general state of the economy and the fact that the quality-but-affordable market is my usual stomping ground, I was naturally excited to get my hands on this G316 X. Alas, what a disappointment.
My experience here is coloured very much by my experience with this keyboard's white 'tactile' switches, which are the switches in the version I was sent, as apparently this is all that will be available in the UK with a UK layout. The US will be able to get a version with linear switches, which will hopefully be at least somewhat better.
There are some things to like about this keyboard, such as the lighting and the sturdy keycaps, but it's impossible to look past the awful keypress experience, most pertinently for gaming. There's little more important than key feel for a keyboard, and there's little more important than having a good gaming key-feel experience in, well, a gaming keyboard. And this keyboard unfortunately struggles on the first front and completely fails on the latter.
On trying the G316 X, my first surprise was that the keys didn't feel tactile at all. Admittedly, it's been a while since I used any tactile switches (for good reason, as linear is king for most kinds of games), but to my memory, 'tactile' is supposed to mean you feel a bump partway down the keypress, and that's when the key actuates. That's good because you can press only that far, then lift back up a little, and press again, all the while being sure that your key has actuated.
That's not what you get here, though. The G316 X's 'tactile' switches essentially feel like linear switches that require a ton of initial force to get them moving. I suppose they feel tactile in the sense that such tremendous initial force is required that you can't help but slam the keys into the keybed, but that's not truly 'tactile' in the original sense of the term.
It does sound clacky—though not thocky, if that's your jam—which is a genuine plus as long as you don't mind a loud keyboard, but it essentially feels like nothing more than a very stiff membrane keyboard. I wouldn't consider it in the same class of key feel as any other mechanical keyboard I've tried, only membranes.
If you want the feel of a stiff membrane that also has a bit of clack to it, then you might enjoy it. But even then, I'm not convinced. I spent a couple of days typing on the keyboard during work, and while initially the stiff, clacky keys felt and sounded nice, by the end of the day my fingers were quite fatigued. It does sound great if you prefer more of a 'clack' to a 'thock', but it is probably only worth it if you don't spend extended periods of time typing.
The stiff switches don't just affect feel, but also in-game performance. I'm used to a linear Hall effect keyboard with rapid trigger, and switching to the G316 X was not a pleasant experience.
Playing Counter-Strike 2, I struggled more than with a standard linear mechanical keyboard to counter-strafe, which meant I missed a ton of shots and had to play the game completely differently, peeking less. And because the keys require a great amount of initial actuation force, but then not much force for the rest of the keypress, I found myself unable to get used to the amount of tension I should keep on the keys at resting position.
This meant I accidentally 'jumped'—literally, by hitting the space bar—when entering to re-take a bomb site in a clutch situation, which lost me the round. One of my teammates told me to uninstall the game, and I honestly couldn't blame him.
So other than the poor keypress experience, what does this keyboard have to offer? Well, the first benefit that I should mention is that its switches are hot swappable. So if you like the look of the keyboard but are rightly put off by my description of how the switches feel, you can buy your own compatible switches and swap them out.
You might want to do this if you simply like the look of it, with its RGB bar and 'dot matrix LED display'. I can't deny that it does look nice, provided you don't mind the more retro look of the LED display. The light bar has 30 zones and adds a bit of cyberpunk flair, but there aren't as many animations to choose from as I would like in the software. It can also be a little laggy when selecting colours, so I'd recommend typing in the RGB or hex values.
Other than the lighting, though, the keyboard is housed in a plain, plastic chassis. It's fairly sturdy, and it doesn't look or feel cheap, but it doesn't exactly look or feel particularly premium, either. Just bang-on average, I'd say.
I do like my keyboards to have a knob to control the volume, so that's a welcome addition, but I didn't find any need to switch off the volume mode to one of the others. The others, which you can change to by long-pressing the knob, allow you to switch music tracks, turn RGB brightness up or down, or change the polling rate.
There's also a dedicated button next to it to turn game mode on, which disables the Windows key and any other keys you set up in the software, and the LED screen will show whether capslock or numlock is on/off when you press those keys. Much of this could be done with function buttons, but it is nice having the options there in their own part of the keyboard.
✅ You like the lighting: There's no denying the light strip gives this keyboard some flair.
✅ You're happy changing switches: Apart from the poor keypress experience, this keyboard is decent, and thankfully the switches are hot-swappable.
❌ You type a lot: These switches are so stiff they can become fatiguing after longer typing sessions
❌ You want pinpoint control: I found these keys with tactile switches to be very difficult to control when counter-strafing in Counter-Strike, for example.
And that's about all there is to the G316 X. It's quite a peculiar keyboard, especially considering how it's priced. I understand what Logitech was going for—an affordable, but not cheap, gaming-oriented keyboard—but for $120 it really needs to deliver more than this.
Given the gaming keyboard market today, a regular RGB-laden gaming keyboard is a tough sell at this price. And when you're failing to deliver a keypress experience that lives up to even much cheaper gaming keyboards (any using a standard Cherry or Gateron switch), it's a very tough sell. Especially when there are keyboards with Hall effect for literally a third of the price.
In all, unless you really like how this thing looks, I'd steer clear of the version with tactile switches at least. If the linear version feels better, then it might be worth a look, but even then, there's plenty of competition out there at this price point, and I'm not sure those fights are leaning in this keyboard's favour.
1. Best overall:
Wooting 80HE
2. Best budget:
Gamakay x Naughshark NS68
3. Best 60%:
Wooting 60HE v2
4. Best 75%:
Keychron K2 HE
5. Best mechanical:
Asus ROG Strix Scope II 96 Wireless
6. Best silent:
Be Quiet! Light Mount
7. Best ergonomic:
Kinesis Freestyle Edge RGB
8. Best membrane:
Glorious GMBK 75%
What could have been a promising keyboard, offering some gaming-oriented features and nice lighting for a mid-range price tag, is unfortunately let down by how its keys feel. They might be nicely clacky, but they're incredibly stiff and not tactile in the traditional sense.
