Logitech POP Keys wireless keyboard review

The recommended retail price for the Logitech POP keys mechanical keyboard is $149 in Austalia, but the average street price is much lower now. If you’re looking to buy one, you should be aiming to spend about $90, depending on the retailer.

This is a great price for such a sturdy, well-designed keyboard, and it compares favourably with similar models from Logitech and competitors. 

For example, the Logitech MX Mechanical Mini is another compact sized mechanical keyboard and retails for $229. There are several obvious differences between these models, but this is a good guide to the value we see in the POP Keys range.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and you’re welcome to disagree, but the colour palettes offered in the POP Keys lineup is great; a well curated selection of attractive colour combinations.

The unit we have reviewed is yellow, black and grey, and known as Blast, though it clearly feels like a missed opportuynity a bee-related pun instead. The other keyboards in the range lean into pastel palettes, all to great effect.

Logitech packs a lot of keys into the small footprint of this compact keyboard. Alongside the standard QWERTY keys, you get a row of media and feature controls along the top row, and a unique column of Emoji presets down the right-hand side. You can customise the emoji presets in the Logi Options app, and there are even extra emoji keys in the box if you want out the default selection..

But, there are some notable absences too. The lack of a Numpad is expected, but we were surprised to find there are no Home, End, Page Up or Page Down keys. You can  remap the Emoji keys to these functions, but then you go without one of the unique features of this keyboard.

The keyboard feels a bit cramped in general, and we found that it took a couple of days to transition from a standard keyboard before we were using the POP Keys comfortably. But even now, we find the arrow keys difficult to strike accurately, and we regular hit the ‘voice dictation’ key rather than the backspace button, and is an unwelcome interruption while typing quickly.

The mechanical keys also seem to sit higher on the POP Keys than other mechanical keyboards, and we found some minor wrist strain from having our fingers elevated for long periods. The advantage of this is how easy it is to clean under the keys, which you can’t say for most keyboards in market.

Logitech includes its Easy Switch system for connecting up to 3 devices simultaneously, and dedicated keys to switching between each. As always, this is a welcome feature, and the portable design of the POP Keys may have you moving it from your office to your living room, after you pair it with your laptop, tablet and smart TV.

The Logitech POP Keys mechanical keyboard is an attractive option; both because of its sharp design and it’s affordable street price. We wouldn’t pay full price for it, but it is good value if you pick it up for $90 or less.

We’ve enjoyed using the POP Keys during our review, but we don’t think it is the right keyboard for everyone. The tight design of the keyboard means that it will suit people with smaller, leaner hands, and the raised keys may require you to invest in a wrist pad for day-to-day use.

The Pop Keys is remarkable for being both compact and having mechanical keys. It's also far more interesting to look at than 95% of the other keyboards you can buy. But it lacks backlighting, which is standard for other keyboards in this price range.