Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K750

Logitech has launched the first 100% solar-powered wireless keyboard that can be recharged via natural light or under artificial lighting. This keyboard requires no cables, no AA batteries and has a small internal battery that can keep it running for several months should it be deprived of a light source. It's impressive, to say the least. Another nice surprise—especially considering this product is unique on the market and full of brand new technology—is that the K750 is still pretty affordable. It'll launch with an RRP of £70 and will be available in online stores from December 2010 or from January 2011 on the high street.

It looks like the Logitech K750 could soon become a shining example in the world of green technology too, as it's one of the most genuinely eco-friendly consumer electronics devices currently available (see insert).

Ten years of hard work

When we see a product this attractive, this innovative, we almost expect it do everything and more besides. So we were naturally wondering why this new keyboard isn't backlit. Denis Pavillard, Vice President of Product Marketing at Logitech, told us that even LED lights consume too much power to run off this kind of solar technology. He also told us that Logitech spent no less than ten years developing this ground-breaking keyboard. The main problem the firm faced was that back in the day, the solar panels required to power a wireless keyboard would have been as big as three sheets of A3 paper stuck together!

Logitech overcame the problem with two separate strategies. First, the firm sought to reduce the amount of energy consumed by the components inside the keyboard (consumption has been dramatically reduced in the K750), while its researchers also strived to improve output from the solar panels. Ten years later, the K750 is the result of all this hard work, and it's powered by two solar panels that are both about the size of a block of RAM.

So when can we expect to see a backlit solar-powered keyboard? 'Maybe not even for another ten years,' Logitech's spokesman told us!

Design & Handling: new keys and a built-in light meter

The K750 is a solar-powered wireless keyboard that unfortunately isn't backlit. To help us get over the lack of backlighting, the K750 has keys that are nicely set apart from one another, and which have a brand new and slightly concave design. This makes them very different to the keys we've already seen in the Logitech Illuminated and K800, and we can't help thinking that the brand has found inspiration in Apple's keyboards, even if this version of the K750 is primarily designed for PCs (the Solar K750 works perfectly well with Macs but doesn't have Apple-specific keys).




A handy button lets you check the charge level as and when required, and you can even download a free utility that turns your keyboard into a desktop light meter!

It's only supposed to give you a rough idea of the intensity of light but we still think it's an informative tool. Next to the window our keyboard picked up 500 Lux, which started to fall as we moved further away from the window, reaching 100 Lux in the middle of the room. Logitech doesn't guarantee the tool's accuracy, billing it more as a bit of fun, but we couldn't help comparing the K750's readings to our professional light meter. In the picture on the right, you can see the Logitech utility on the left and the professional light meter on the right. The results literally made our jaws drop, as there was only an average difference of around 2% between the two meters! Who knows, maybe we were just lucky ...

Room for improvement!

Although the Solar K750 is an excellent keyboard, it's still not perfect and isn't the most practical model we've ever used.

• There are no lights to tell you when the Caps Lock or Num Lock functions are activated (probably to save energy).

• We would have liked to see some kind of on-board storage for the USB adapter, in case you need to take the K750 from one place to another (and show it off!).

• The flip-out legs used to stand the keyboard up look a bit flimsy. They're either up or down with no intermediate options to tilt the keyboard as required. Plus, you can only tilt the keyboard forwards. They also seem a bit thin and fragile to us.

Typing

The Solar K750 uses 'scissor'-type keys which are more expensive to make but usually fairly quiet ... well, they're reasonably quiet we suppose. The Space bar—a key that's usually hard to keep quiet because of its size—is definitely kept in check in the K750. For the rest of the keys though, we've definitely seen quieter models.

Multimedia: shortcuts and games

The Solar K750 has a selection of shortcuts that can be accessed by holding down the main Function key plus the corresponding F key (F9, F10 and F11 double up as volume controls, for example). These offer direct access to your inbox, calculator, volume settings etc.

Although this is very handy, gaming keyboards tend to offer more shortcuts, with separate buttons for the volume settings rather than dual-function keys. They also allow you to create automatic commands so that in games, for example, you can press just one key to jump, roll and recharge your weapons all at the same time, or in office computing, you can automatically insert frequently used phrases (e.g. 'Hi, how are you?') at the touch of a button. In any case, it looks like such advanced functions are pretty much restricted to gaming keyboards, and some of you may not like their very particular design.

For gamers, the K750 shouldn't miss out too many commands when you hit too many keys too quickly. While only a maximum of 30 keys per second can be handled (some models can cope with four times as many), up to six keys can be activated at the same time, except in a few specific situations that most of you won't even notice (e.g. it can't register V+B+N+S+D at the same time, the N becomes inactive).

Logitech announces a battery life of four months for the keyboard if starved of light sources. This has been tested by all kinds of clever machines in the Logitech lab, and is based on an average typing frequency of 2 million keys per year.

Note that although some 'solar-powered keyboards' were launched a few years ago, these were actually hybrid models with either batteries (Cherry) or a USB cable (Genius) on hand as a back-up power source. The Solar K750 is the first keyboard that's 100% solar powered, the internal battery is only required if the keyboard is plunged into total darkness.