I found the best keyboard for college students, and its ChatGPT shortcut proves it

About 4 years in the past I invested in a Logitech MX Keys, a responsive, clicky, low-profile keyboard geared towards work and productiveness. Features like multi-device connectivity and the comfortably-shaped keycaps bought me on the workplace accent, however its confidence-inspiring design and lack of distracting RGB lights made it a mainstay on my desk.

Also: Best keyboards you should purchase in time for again to highschool

So it piqued my curiosity when Logitech invited me for a briefing earlier this month to take a look at the firm’s new model of my day by day keyboard. “What exactly does an MX Keys ‘S’ version entail when the original has already treated me so well?”, I requested myself. Longer battery life? A lighter footprint? Quieter key presses?

Lo and behold, Logitech pitched the successor to me with the one use case that ought to have been on my thoughts since the very starting: how AI matches into all of this. And belief me, this typing device doesn’t disappoint.

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Logitech MX Keys S

A full-size, low-profile keyboard that is each Windows and Mac appropriate.

For starters, if you happen to’re acquainted with the authentic Logitech MX Keys — whether or not it’s the full-size mannequin or Mini — you then’ll really feel proper at dwelling when typing on the MX Keys S. Logitech retained most of the design parts of the authentic with this newer model, which isn’t as risk-taking as I’d hoped the firm could be, but when it ain’t broke, do not repair it, I guess.

The keyboard nonetheless has a non-adjustable tilt angle (although I by no means had a problem with the current peak), helps USB-C quick charging for as much as 5 months of utilization per cycle, has a wise backlighting system that wakes at any time when the keyboard detects your palms reaching for it, and is simply as pleasurable to kind on as the outdated.

Each keycap has constant, tactile suggestions that thumps in the identical journey distance and quantity, whether or not it’s the escape key on the far left or the enter key on the far proper. This uniformity is vital to typists since you’re much less more likely to lose rhythm (or your prepare of thought) when creating, modifying, or writing articles like this.

Also: Logitech’s Project Ghost attracts on outdated digicam methods for higher video conferences at this time

As for what’s new, Logitech has swapped in three new operate keys: Dictation, mute/unmute microphone, and an emoji menu to provide customers extra serviceable controls in the age of hybrid work. The MX Keys S additionally helps the firm’s proprietary connection platform, Logi Options+, through Logi Bolt now. That means house owners of different current Logitech peripherals like the MX Master 3S can use only one unifying receiver for all of their equipment.

But what we’re all right here for is a brand new function known as Smart Actions. You can consider it like macros — preset or self-customized routines that may be triggered with a press of a key. For instance, at the finish of a workday, I have the emoji menu key set to shut all my lively Chrome tabs and Zoom, open Spotify, and then play music. By pre-registering keystrokes and inputs, one secret’s now programmed to set off an order of instructions.

Perhaps the coolest routine integration is what I labeled as “ChatGPT Input”. 

Also:My 5 favourite AI instruments for work 

Picture this: A coworker asks you for native restaurant suggestions. So, you enlist the assist of ChatGPT to scan the internet and fetch you the best eateries close by. By tapping a single key — I have my Smart Action set to the Mute/unmute key — the MX Keys S indicators the pc to repeat the question, open a brand new tab to ChatGPT, give a second delay for the service to load, then paste the immediate and hit enter. 

This is the sequence that bought me on the new keyboard throughout my briefing, and it was so good that I needed to recreate it myself. It’s principally ChatGPT on pace dial, and I can think about such a function making different generative AI instruments simply as environment friendly to make use of.

Also: How ChatGPT can rewrite and enhance your current code

For extra inspiration, my different Smart Actions embody shortly zooming into a picture on Photoshop and activating the mixer brush for mixing, and bringing Slack to the foreground and beginning a brand new message to myself at any time when I must jot down concepts.

Smart Actions may be mapped to most, if not all, Logitech peripherals that assist Logi Options+. So whereas it’s not an unique function for the new MX Keys S per se and you are technically sacrificing the authentic performance of a key or two, it’s nonetheless a improbable addition to an already confirmed keyboard. And at $109, $10 lower than what the authentic MX Keys price, I cannot advocate a greater accent for your typing and generative AI wants.

For extra back-to-school suggestions, take a look at ZDNET’s final tech offers checklist.