Logitech MX Keys Mini reviewed: Honey, I made the keyboard smaller
RRP $ 99.00
"The Logitech MX Keys Mini offers the same great typing experience in a smaller, more ergonomic experience."
advantages
-
Comfortable typing experience
-
Compact and lightweight for on the go
-
Ergonomic
-
Advanced features
-
Sustainable design and packaging
disadvantage
-
Expensive
-
Cannot be used as a wired keyboard
How do you improve a near-perfect keyboard? It's a good problem for Logitech with its MX Keys peripheral, which quickly became a fan-favorite keyboard at retailers like Amazon.
Logitech's solution was to bring a more compact version of its critically acclaimed keyboard in the form of the MX Keys Mini and MX Keys Mini for Mac. Both the standard and compact keyboards have similar layouts, with the one made for the Mac edition containing Apple-specific keys such as the option and command keys. Versions with international keyboard layouts will also be available.
It's not for the serious mechanical keyboard enthusiast, but most others will find a lot in what Logitech did with the MX Keys Mini.
draft
Smaller doesn't mean tight. Like the regular MX Keys, the MX Keys Mini has full-size keys for easy typing. To shrink the dimensions of the keyboard – the standard version measures 131.63 x 430.2 x 20.5 mm – Logitech removed essentially everything to the right of the Enter key and repositioned the arrow keys in an inverted T layout. This reduces the width of the MX Keys Mini by 134.21 mm to 295.99 mm.
This is equivalent to a size reduction of just over five and a half inches – or 30%. The compact dimensions make the MX Mini more portable, making it easier to slip into a smaller bag when you need a better keyboard for remote typing. The real benefit, however, is that a narrower keyboard makes typing more ergonomic.
The new size reduces the weight of the keyboard from 810 grams to 506 grams. Much of the weight is due to the solid construction of the keyboard, which has a full metal shell on the top that surrounds the keys in an island style. There's a thin plastic strip that extends from the top of the keyboard, and this area houses the sensors, battery, and circuitry. The other dimensions have also changed slightly, but are largely similar to the original model.
Like the original, the mini edition has individual keys with a circular indentation on the keycap, a design feature that helps with typing. The chiclet key layout looks a lot more modern than the 1990s-style keycaps on mechanical keyboards, and looks like you could have taken them straight off a laptop. The company claims that the dimple on each key adjusts to your fingertips as you type, and automatic backlighting is available for night work too.
The MX Keys Mini is available in three colors – rose, graphite, and light gray – and features white LED-backlit keys. A built-in battery provides up to 10 days of use on a single charge with the backlight on, or up to five months of no-light use, claims Logitech, and it can be charged using the included USB-C cable. The keyboard version that we received for testing is made of graphite and comes with slightly darker gray keycaps and white lettering.
Our model isn't made for Mac, but it also comes with dual keys that support Mac and Windows – for example, the Apple Option key can be used to activate the Start menu on Windows, while the Command key can also serve as the Alt key on the Microsoft operating system. If you're a Mac user looking to take over the MX Keys Mini, the major downside is that you won't find a Touch ID fingerprint scanner on this third party keyboard.
As part of the company's commitment to sustainability, the MX Keys Mini is made with up to 30% recycled plastic, however the amount of recycled plastic in the lighter shades will be far less than the darker graphite color variant. That's because, according to the company, it's way too difficult to extract and recycle plastics from existing keyboards – which are often made from darker materials – and convert them to lighter colors like those found on the pink and light gray keyboard .
Typing and functions
Many of the key functions of the larger MX Keys are carried over to the MX Keys Mini, including the ability to pair and use the keyboard with up to three different Bluetooth devices. The keyboard has alternate keys in the row of functions for switching between devices. Logitech claims the keyboard will work on a wide range of devices including Windows, Mac, Android, Linux, iOS, and iPadOS.
The company will also release a special Enterprise version that uses a more secure and proprietary Logi Bolt connection. This B2B model requires a special USB-A dongle, while the consumer model that you can find in many retail stores works with Bluetooth.
1.8 mm travel is sufficient for long sessions with comfortable typing.
Logitech didn't provide any key travel and pitch specifications for the MX Keys Mini, but they feel no different than the full-size original, advertised as 1.8mm of key travel. This makes the key travel comparable to what you'd find on some larger professional laptops and gaming laptops. Many smaller laptops in the 13-inch range have keys with 1.1 mm to 1.5 mm of travel, while some larger 15-inch notebooks have keyboards with 1.5 to 1.8 mm of travel. In any case, 1.8 mm of travel is sufficient for long sessions with comfortable typing.
For comparison, Apple's newest Magic Keyboard on the MacBook Pro has a 1mm shorter key travel that uses a new scissor switch implementation, while the company's older butterfly keys on some older Intel-model laptops only provided 0.7mm of key travel.
The MX Keys Mini feels like it was made for those who love laptop keyboards but prefer to work at their desks. While my MacBook Pro keyboard feels different when typing – Apple's keys are less stiff and louder – the similarly sized Logitech offers the same ergonomic experience. When I paired the Logitech MX Keys Mini with my Apple Mac Mini on my desk, it really felt like I was working on a mobile workstation.
If you are used to working on a laptop without a built-in numeric keypad, a similar arrangement in an external keyboard makes it easier to customize and helps with ergonomics if you have the right desk setup. An external monitor would be ideal, but even if you choose not to connect a second monitor, putting your laptop on a stand helps as you won't stretch your neck to look at your laptop's screen.
And when you add the right external keyboard to the setup, you get an even more comfortable PC environment with a larger key travel. Moving the keyboard closer to your body can also reduce arm fatigue.
And to accommodate more modern communication modes, the MX Keys are also equipped with some special keys that make it easier to get your message across. There's an emoji button that brings up an emoji picker so you can choose the best emoticon to use, for example, to express yourself in an email, and a new dictation button helps you control your operating system's voice-to-text engine to type with your voice.
power
If you consistently work on two or three different devices as part of your workflow, the MX Keys Mini is for you. Pairing multiple devices allows you to connect up to three devices without the need for a KVM switch and also saves desk space as you don't need a separate keyboard for your desktop and a second tablet, like an iPad Pro or SurfacePro 8.
Like its bigger brother, the MX Keys Mini offers a very comfortable typing experience with its full-size keys. Compared to the butterfly key switches on my aging MacBook Pro 13 inch, the keys of the MX Keys Mini are deeper, stiffer (since they require more actuation force) and a little quieter. A quieter keyboard could be useful if you share a small apartment with someone else and prefer to work at night.
The backlight turns on automatically when your hands approach the keyboard.
LED-backlit keys on a wireless keyboard aren't a new technology, but Logitech has made some smart upgrades to make this popular staple even better. Like the backlit keyboard on many modern laptops, the backlight can be adjusted manually – there are six levels of brightness, and you can also turn it off – or automatically based on the ambient light in the room.
Thanks to magnetic sensors, the backlight can also turn on automatically when your hands approach the keyboard. This feature may sound trivial, but it is extremely useful. On other keyboard models, the backlight turns off after a period of inactivity to save battery life. To turn the backlight back on, you need to tap any key on the keyboard randomly to wake it up.
If you press a non-character key, such as the Shift key or the Ctrl key, everything is fine. However, if you tap any of the character keys like a letter, you are accidentally adding gibberish to your open document and will have to delete any additions you made. Distorting the MX Keys Mini's magnetic field to wake up a backlight is an ingenious solution to a problem many didn't even know they had until they started using the Logitech keyboard.
Since the keyboard has full-size keys, it didn't take me any time to get used to the keyboard and was able to type accurately and quickly right out of the box. My typing speed and accuracy on this model rivaled that of keyboards on Apple, Lenovos, and HP laptops, and I had no problems with typing accuracy. The deeper key travel feels more similar on Windows laptops than it does on Mac laptops.
As someone who mainly works on a laptop, the biggest criticism of the MX Keys Mini is that the keys feel a little too stiff. While key travel is generous, the Logitech keyboard's keys require greater actuation force before they move. The greater force required to operate it could result in increased finger fatigue, at least until you get used to the keyboard. It took me about a day to acclimate and once I did it, the MX Keys Mini delivered one of the better typing experiences with responsive switches outside of a mechanical keyboard.
Logitech did not provide precise actuation force measurements for the Mini, but in general the typing experience is very similar to that of the larger MX Keys. If you are experienced with the MX Keys you will feel right at home here. Compared to Apple's external Magic Keyboard that comes with the iMac, the MX Keys feel a little quieter when typing and require a little more force to operate.
Mac users who choose this keyboard will have to forego Touch ID support, a feature supported by some of Apple's newer external keyboards. However, this is not limited to Logitech as no third-party Mac keyboards currently support fingerprint recognition on Mac. Since most Windows systems rely on face scanning with Windows Hello, this may be less of a concern for PC owners.
The MX Keys Mini comes with a single USB-C to USB-A cable for charging and can be connected to your PC or Mac via Bluetooth. The Mac edition comes with a USB-C to USB-C cable instead. tThe keyboard's USB-C port is used for charging only and you cannot connect it to your PC to use it as a wired keyboard. You can still charge the battery while using it via Bluetooth.
While I didn't experience any lag or latency from the wireless connection, if you're concerned about Bluetooth security or around, you can also opt for the MX Keys Mini for Business model, which works with Logitech's proprietary Bolt standard Make input delays. Logi Bolt, as it's called, also works with Bluetooth if you don't take the adapter with you when you travel.
In my weeklong review of the MX Keys Mini – this test was done entirely with the MX Keys Mini connected to a MacBook Pro via Bluetooth – I was unable to discharge the battery. During the day the backlight was generally turned off to save power and at night I let the keyboard automatically adjust the backlight to the available ambient lighting.
Despite the added convenience of a narrow keyboard, the MX Keys Mini is not designed for ergonomics.
Compared to a wider, full-size keyboard with a number pad, the MX Keys Mini's narrower keyboard makes working on long documents more convenient, although it may not be the ideal solution for a finance or accounting job. If you work with a lot of numbers or live in Excel spreadsheets, you're better off using a keyboard with a dedicated number pad like the full-size MX keys.
The Logitech team informed me that the narrower dimension was designed for ergonomics. It's supposed to reduce muscle fatigue by reducing your arms spread as widely and resulting in a more natural posture at the desk. But despite the added convenience of a slim keyboard, this keyboard is not designed for the same ergonomics as the split-design keyboard.
Another advanced software-based feature of the MX Keys and MX Keys Mini is called Flow. For Flow you need an MX series mouse, such as the MX Master 3 or MX Master Anywhere. Once these devices are paired on multiple computers, you can essentially copy and paste text, files, and documents between Mac and Windows devices. This helps simplify your workflow so that you don't have to rely on USB drives or cloud storage to access a document that is on another paired device. In practice, it works really well, adding to the support for pairing multiple devices.
Our opinion
Logitech doesn't shy away from experimenting with a proven formula to improve its existing products. By removing its popular MX keys while keeping the keys at full size, the company has made arguably the best keyboards on the market even better by making it more portable and focusing on ergonomics.
are there alternatives
At $ 99, the Logitech MX Keys Mini will cost the same as the full version when shipped next month. So you're making a compromise between ergonomics and a dedicated number pad for entering data in spreadsheets. There are plenty of other wireless and wired keyboards competing in the same place as the Logitech MX Keys series, but keep in mind that you'll be sacrificing some of the more advanced features – deep key travel, flow, and sophisticated backlighting – if you choose for cheaper models.
Some brand competitors include Apple's Magic Keyboard, which sells for the same price, or the new Magic Keyboard with Touch ID, which adds a $ 50 premium. There's also Microsoft's Premium Designer Compact Keyboard, which costs $ 50 less than what Logitech has to offer.
How long it will take?
The MX Keys Mini is covered by Logitech's one-year limited hardware warranty, while the MX Keys Mini for Business with Logi Bolt support has an additional year of support.
A premium keyboard like the MX Keys Mini should last for many years. Unlike a laptop, there aren't many innovations in the keyboard area that will warrant an upgrade to a newer model anytime soon, so this device should last as long as the rechargeable battery can be charged.
Should I buy it?
Although expensive as a Bluetooth accessory, the MX Keys Mini is a solid investment that will help you stay productive and keep your body happy thanks to its thoughtful ergonomic design. It offers the great typing experience that the original MX Keys offered in a more compact package.
Editor's recommendations