Over the years, the Logitech company has come up with some of the most interesting gaming-related PC peripherals to ever arrive on the market, whether we're talking about racing wheels, joysticks, keyboards or mice. As far as keyboards are concerned, the G15 has ruled over Logitech's lineup for quite a long time, but in January 2009, the company has decided to launch its successor, the G19.

In fact, the G19 is related to the G15 as far as the overall design concept is concerned, but the truth of the matter is that pretty much every feature of the G15 has been seriously improved for the G19. And one of the first areas where these improvements become visible is that of the display.

As some of you might know, one of the G15's trademark features was the built-in display. The new Logitech G19 follows that legacy, since it comes equipped with a tiltable, 320-by-240-pixel display, which provides in-game information for over sixty games. Moreover, beside the in-game information, the screen can show VoIP communication data, clock, CPU load, or other non-gaming specific items such as pictures or video.

Beside the display, the G19 also offers users a couple of very useful customization options, such as 2 fully programmable G-keys with three macros per key, giving users 36 time-saving commands per game. Gamers are also allowed to carry out multiple actions simultaneously, due to the fact that the keyboard sports a multi-key input-functionality, which allows one to engage up to five keys at the same time.

Other interesting features include the Game/desktop mode, which lets users disable the Windows/Context Menu keys so they won’t interrupt the game if pressed accidentally, as well as the possibility of choosing exactly what keys will light-up in low-light environments (the whole keyboard is backlit, by the way) and the color for each of the keys.

The new G19 also sports a couple of features whose main role is to make things a lot more convenient for the user. For example, the keyboard sports two powered USB ports, which can be easily used for transferring data to and from peripherals, such as MP3 players and flash drives, while in the same time also charging battery-powered devices. Plus, there's also an intelligent cable management system, which allows gamers to keep the mouse, headset, and other cords out of the way by routing them through channels on the underside of the keyboard.

The Logitech G19 sells for around 200 US dollars, which is twice as much as the current-generation G15, but, on the other hand, it's quite worth it, given the numerous attractive features it provides. Of course, it remains to be seen just how successful the keyboard will prove to be, since, after all, not many people are ready and willing to spend that much on a peripheral nowadays.