Logitech Pebble Wireless Multi-Device Keyboard

People use computers in a lot of different ways. There is no one-size-fits-everyone keyboard. This keyboard already has many reviews, and while I did not read all of them, I did not see any existing reviews focusing on the specific problems I have with this keyboard. I am adding my experience here for the folks who have similar needs to mine. TL;DR: Lots of good qualities, but bad for intense keyboarding sessions. - Pros: 1) $30; 2) quick-switch over 3 devices; 3) sturdy and portable; 4) same form factor as an Apple keyboard; 5) feels good to type on. - Cons: 1) It drops key presses when typing quickly; 2) Software support is bad; 3) Fn key behavior is hardcoded and cannot be overridden. BACKGROUND I purchased the Logitech K380 to use as a full-time keyboard at a desk with my MacBook Pro (MBP) 2018 laptop, which unfortunately has a keyboard infamous for malfunctioning. I recently had my laptop's keyboard replaced due to worsening issues, and decided to start using an external keyboard to minimize wear and tear on the new one. This review focuses on what I personally need in a keyboard as a software engineer who types rapidly (~130 WPM) with a keyboard-shortcut-intensive usage style. People who use a keyboard in a more casual way, and who do not care about customizing the keyboard's behavior, will probably not encounter the issues I discuss here. My requirements for an external keyboard are: - As accurate as possible when typing at 130+ WPM. - Exact same form factor as MBP keyboard, to unify muscle memory across the built-in and external keyboards. - Real function keys which can be set to act as F keys by default. I basically wanted my laptop's built-in keyboard, but as an external keyboard. Hey, Apple makes one of those! It's called the Apple Magic Keyboard (Wireless, Rechargable). So why didn't I just buy that? Two reasons. First, the price: $99+ is expensive. Second, I had bad experiences with Apple wireless keyboards from a few years ago: several keyboards which refused to pair, or would spontaneously unpair after a while. I have been a Logitech fan for many years, having enjoyed using many of their keyboards and mice on desktop PCs. When I saw that the Logitech K380 had a nearly identical form factor to the Magic keyboard including fn key, had strong reviews, was only $30 on Amazon, and supported quick-switching across devices, I decided to give it a try. PROS - This keyboard has a lot going for it: 1) Affordable. This keyboard is a great value for the price. 2) Quick-switch over multiple devices. Having tried several different means of tackling the "one keyboard, multiple machines" problem, I can say that quick bluetooth pairing has big advantages. Each switch only takes about 1 second, and it "just works," unlike Synergy, which requires networking your machines together and running special server software, or a USB KVM switch, which requires several cables and adapters. 3) Sturdy and portable. Some other reviews complained about these aspects. But I think it is exactly the right weight (1.17 lbs): it stays put while you type. And it's a small form factor keyboard which fits easily into a backpack or larger purse. If it were any more portable (e.g. foldable), it would suffer in durability or typing performance. 4) Same form factor as an Apple keyboard. I use macOS, and care about consistency across my keyboards. This keyboard is close enough to the Apple form factor that it feels pretty seamless switching between keyboards. It has all four modifier keys on the bottom left (fn, ctrl, start/alt/opt, alt/cmd ⌘), which is a big plus for me. Although beware that fn and control are reversed from Apple keyboards—more on that in "CONS" below. 5) Feels good to type on. This is highly subjective. But personally, I really like the feel of typing on this keyboard. The keys have a nice amount of travel: more than a MBP 2018, less than a classic 101-key keyboard e.g. from a Dell PC. The rounded keys are slightly strange at first but quickly become unnoticeable. Relatedly: another Amazon review mentions key presses happening repeatedly and sporadically, making correct typing nigh-impossible. This sounds like a defective keyboard to me—I have had zero problems with mine in that vein. CONS - Despite all of the above, using this keyboard intensely day after day is frustrating: 1) It drops key presses when typing quickly. In particular, certain combinations of keys, when pressed together, prevent additional key presses from registering. This is best illustrated with an example. Try typing the word "furious" as fast as you can. When I type this word on the Logitech K380, it nearly always comes out "furiou", with the S missing. Why? Each key typed has two parts: the press and the release. When typing quickly, you often press the next key (sometimes the next 3-4 keys) before releasing a previous key. Good keyboards will allow this. But on my K380, if I press O, then press U, then press S, without releasing any of them, the S does not register. It's not that the keyboard cannot handle three keys at once: the word "out" for example comes out just fine. But the word "plastic" eats the S. It's not just the S key though, because the words "nose" and "poster" work even with all keys held at once. But "please" eats the S, and "purse" eats the E. I am not sure, but it feels like a hardware just has a weird limitation here. It destroys my confidence in this keyboard. 2) The software support is terrible. For macOS, Logitech provides a configuration tool called "Logi Options" for configuring the keyboard. It has nearly no features. One option it does have is "Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys" which sounds great in theory. As a software developer who needs to press combinations like cmd+shift+F11 on a regular basis, I strongly prefer this option to be enabled, so I don't have to press fn+cmd+shift+F11 instead (ugh). For the special functions (pause/unpause, next track, volume up, volume down, etc.), although I use them all the time, I never need to press them in combination with the other modifier keys like shift or ctrl, so holding fn for them is OK. I also use fn+arrow keys all the time for pg up, pg down, home and end, because there are no such dedicated keys on these small form factor keyboards. Unfortunately, this feature does not work reliably. When switching devices, the keyboard "forgets" that this option was enabled, and F keys go back to being not-F-keys again, and the next time you press F3 to dig into some code or switch terminal tabs or whatever, boom, your keyboard is unpaired again. And opening Logi Options and toggling the option back and forth does not fix it! It seems like after some unspecified amount of time, the keyboard just silently "flips" back to F-keys being F-keys again. But the inconsistency there makes it impossible to retain trustworthy muscle memory on the keyboard. And the weirdness does not stop there. Even when F-keys are not being F-keys (either because the keyboard was recently repaired, or because the box in Logi Options is unchecked and taken effect), the behavior of e.g. fn+up/down seems inconsistent: sometimes it's brightness up/down, and other times it's the equivalent of left alt+up/down (as reported by Karabiner Event Viewer). There are times when it becomes impossible to type pg up, pg down, home and/or end, due to the keyboard's inconsistency in behavior. And not being able to type those four keys puts a big damper on fast text editing. These segues into the final nail in this keyboard's coffin: 3) Fn key behavior is hardcoded and cannot be overridden. There is a great macOS tool called Karabiner Elements which lets you completely remap all your keys to behave however you want. So my plan for dealing with the weirdness of Logi Options was: I'll just use the Karabiner Event Viewer to figure out what keyboard events this keyboard is sending out, and remap everything to behave as closely as possible to an Apple keyboard. Problem solved! But you can't: pressing fn sends no key event. The keyboard only sends a keyboard event to your computer in response to keys pressed while fn is held. So e.g. pressing fn+up (sometimes! see above) sends the same thing as left alt+up. Thus, there is no way in software to detect the difference between fn+up and left alt+up, and therefore no way to program them to do different things. (For the GitHub-inclined, there is an issue in the Karabiner Elements issue tracker about it: pqrs-org/Karabiner-Elements#999.) This problem also means that you cannot switch the location of the ctrl and fn keys, which are reversed from their layout on Apple keyboards. Bummer—I bought this keyboard with the hope of being able to do that. I tried with Logi Options installed and Karabiner Elements uninstalled. I tried vice versa. I tried both installed. I tried neither installed. Rebooting in between configuration changes. But nothing worked. I could not find any way to capture an fn key press alone, nor to switch the locations of the ctrl and fn keys to match an Apple keyboard. (When Karabiner Elements is installed, the Keyboard Modifier Keys dialog in System Preferences gains a "Function (fn) key" for the K380, but sadly it does not work. And you still cannot map any other modifier key to fn either.) In conclusion, I heartily recommend this keyboard for casual use of slow-to-moderate speed typists. And vehemently recommend against it for intense typists and power users who want control over their keyboard's behavior.