Logitech G413 SE TKL Mechanical Keyboard Review – Not meching my day

Mechanical keyboards usually come in three flavours: Cheap, expensive, and by gum you’ve gone all in with those Neon Genesis Evangelion keycaps haven’t you?

Logitech’s G413 SE TKL makes for a good proposition on paper then. It’s a mechanical keyboard from a company that has a reputation for producing quality gear in that category, it has a premium look, and a budget price that puts it in league with other manufacturers.

The catch here is that while the G413 SE TKL certainly looks great, it cuts corners in vital areas so that it can shave down the price and reach that budget mark. But first, let’s chat about the good stuff.

Out of the box, the G413 SE TKL has a decent heft to it. The overall lack of ostentatious RGB lighting means that it has a more elegant appearance with its single selection of LED backlighting. And the brushed steel finish feels wonderfully sturdy. There’s no numpad of course, but the overall physical footprint of this keyboard means that you can easily stow it in your backpack and set off on a trip to your next esports event.

Where the G413 drops the ball though, is with its choice of switches. While Logitech has made use of its proprietary Romer-G switches in its premium range, the G413 TKL uses stock-standard Cherry MX-style Longhua switches from Kaihua instead. That’s an entirely standard switch right there; essentially tactiles that are on par with Cherry MX Brown switches and aren’t hot-swappable. That is unless you’re willing to bust out a toolkit to make some modifications. At least you can change the keycaps if the desire hits you.

And while the standard keycaps boast a sharp design, they’re sorely lacking in the departments that make mechanical keyboards so popular. Each tap of a key is accompanied by an unsatisfying dull thud and a travel feeling that can only be described as mushy. The most appealing mechanical keyboards on the market provide a tactile feedback sensation that is crisp, pops with each press, and makes every gram of actuation force feel satisfying to hammer. The G413 SE TKL simply delivers none of that haptic feedback pleasure because even with a set of durable keycaps, the mechanics beneath them are sorely lacking.

Another notable feature is the inclusion of six-key rollover with an anti-ghosting gaming matrix (or how many keys you can depress at the same time before things get wonky), with the listed number being the bare minimum for modern gaming these days. A further strange design quirk that I found was the lack of a USB passthrough port that limits the functionality of this keyboard, and, bafflingly, no software support through Logitech G Hub. That’s strange, although depending on how often you use it to customize your Logitech hardware, possibly a non-issue.

So who is this keyboard for? The Logitech G413 SE TKL certainly has decent build quality, but the cut corners essentially turn this keyboard into a good-looking barebones device that feels ordinary to type on and play games with. Considering the alternatives on the market that feature more bang for your buck within their frames, Logitech’s keyboard feels like a textbook example of style over substance.