Logitech MX Artistic Console assessment: choose your individual buttons

At the least for now, your laptop or desktop pc is inherently extra succesful than a smartphone or tablet. What you lose, sticking to the classics, is numerous the interface simplicity of a cellphone. Utilizing a desktop pc to it is fullest means getting snug with keyboard shortcuts, particularly if you happen to plan on utilizing any form of skilled artistic software program. That’s, until you might have a macro pad.

Macro pads or shortcut keypads have existed for ages as instruments for digital artists to rapidly entry controls and settings within the dense menus of desktop software program, or for switching cameras and microphones throughout a broadcast. They burst into the mainstream through the pandemic WFH period, although, largely due to the recognition of the Stream Deck, which was designed initially for controlling livestreams, however whose buttons may very well be custom-made to work with a bunch of various functions.

Logitech’s MX Creative Console is a one-two punch meant to deal with the recognition of the Stream Deck — the corporate acquired competitor Loupedeck in 2023 seemingly with the identical motivation — that features a dialpad and a keypad for switching instruments and adjusting settings in apps. For those who’re not utilizing an formally supported app it could take quite a bit to arrange, but it surely’s numerous enjoyable to make use of when you do.

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Logitech MX Artistic Console

Logitech’s MX Artistic Console is a dialpad and keypad combo pack that’s designed to manage Adobe software program however can work with absolutely anything in your pc if you happen to’re keen to set it up.

Professionals & Cons

• Tacitle controls makes every little thing simpler
• Deeply customizable
• Makes utilizing your pc really feel extra private

• Establishing buttons can take numerous time
• Not each appropriate app receives the identical stage of help

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Value, availability, and specs

The Logitech MX Artistic Console launched in September 2024 for $200, a better worth than the $100 you pay for an entry-level Stream Deck Neo. You should purchase the MX Artistic Console immediately from Logitech, or from retailers like Amazon in both darkish grey (graphite) or white (pale grey).

A part of the justification for the MX Artistic Console’s increased costs is that you just’re truly getting two totally different gadgets for one buy; a Stream Deck-esque keypad, with 9 sq. buttons within the heart and web page ahead and web page again buttons, and a dialpad with a dial, curler, and 4 extra buttons. The dialpad works over Bluetooth and has two rechargeable AAA batteries you possibly can cost with a USB-C cable, whereas the keypad must be wired into your pc to work, additionally over USB-C.

Whereas each items of the MX Artistic Console are principally fabricated from plastic — save for the dialpad’s cool steel dial — they really feel sturdy and have satisfyingly clicky buttons. They’re premium equipment, even when they won’t look it at first blush. Logitech’s designed the MX Artistic Console to work with Adobe apps initially (Photoshop, Illustrator Premiere Professional, Lightroom Basic, After Results, and Audition), however gives plugins for different apps, like Zoom, Microsoft Groups, and Ultimate Reduce Professional, which you can obtain.

Much more importantly, any keyboard shortcut will be assigned to a button or different management with the Logi Choices + app, which implies any app can have a profile made for it if you happen to really need it to.

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What I appreciated concerning the Logitech MX Artistic Console

It is each enjoyable and handy to push buttons

I’ve lengthy fantasized concerning the potential of those sorts of shortcut keypads, however have by no means been in a position to justify shopping for one due to the form of work I do. There are simply fewer keyboard shortcuts a journalist wants to recollect than a 3D modeler. Some a part of me additionally thinks including further gear that I do not deem obligatory creates the phantasm of productiveness enhancements with out truly altering something. Fortunately, even when it does not fully make sense for my job, based mostly on my time with the MX Artistic Console, I used to be proper to be curious.

With the ability to rapidly take a screenshot, launch certainly one of my generally used apps, or entry instruments I can by no means bear in mind the identify of in my photograph enhancing app is extremely useful. It is also fairly enjoyable due to how Logitech’s buttons, dials, and rollers really feel to make use of. A dial or curler is tactile, easy, and able to extra finesse than a mouse for tweaking settings, and while you’re a couple of layers deep enhancing one thing, that is what you need.

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It is also fairly simple to arrange and customise the MX Artistic Console with the Logi Choices+ app. With an app plugin put in, you get dozens of shortcut choices to pull a drop onto your keypad, and pre-made layouts for apps like Photoshop and Zoom. You’ll be able to cease there and be fairly nicely off, particularly if you happen to principally work in Adobe’s suite, however there’s additionally the liberty to do much more by creating your individual shortcut buttons.

Any mixture of keys in an app can turn out to be a button with a customizable icon. And within the case of the dial or curler, you possibly can even assign actions (or keys) to be nearly pressed alongside no matter you need your bodily changes to correspond to. It takes work to make these, however you might have a stunning quantity of flexibility by way of the buttons and controls you possibly can create, and on the important thing pad, what every button appears like.

What I did not like concerning the Logitech MX Artistic Console

The dearth of help — official or in any other case — may very well be an issue

There are valuable few issues I can discover at fault with the MX Artistic Console. It is a bit annoying to have one accent that is wi-fi and one other that is wired, however there’s possible motive for that. I think about it takes extra energy to gentle up the shows behind the buttons than it does simply register inputs on the dial pad. However, I used to be nonetheless bothered by having to take care of one other cable.

The bigger concern is the work you need to put into the Logi Choices+ app to get a setup that works for you. The app is designed to handle all of Logitech’s current merchandise, and it looks as if it is lacking a few of the polish that could be current if it was simply targeted on the Logitech MX Artistic Console. For instance, it seems like the corporate ought to’ve finished extra to make constructing setups for apps with out profiles simpler. There is not any software program function that would have recognized and added accessible app shortcuts routinely? Even when I then needed to go in and edit these routinely added shortcuts, I nonetheless would’ve most well-liked that annoyance to including every little thing one after the other, manually.

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There’s additionally the query of what occurs when Logitech stops supporting the MX Artistic Console. The accent already does not appear to have fairly the extent of group help that the Stream Deck has. Is Logitech going to hassle internet hosting a market for profiles a 12 months or two from now? There’s nothing to counsel the corporate will not, however tech corporations have dropped help for equipment for much less.

Must you purchase the Logitech MX Artistic console?

The advantages of bodily buttons take work

There’s quite a bit to love concerning the MX Artistic Console, however its largest benefit is that it makes utilizing your pc each simpler and extra private. Even when it takes work to truly put collectively, being pressured to consider the way you’re presently utilizing your software program is an effective factor.

It prompts a form of digital spring-cleaning, manual-reading, and group that may all the time go away you in a greater place. You will study your self, your habits, and your expertise.

If you may make peace with restricted help from Logitech and are snug paying a little bit of a premium to do issues in your pc which can be already doable with keyboard shortcuts, the MX Artistic Console is enjoyable, useful, and most significantly, versatile. That is all you possibly can actually ask for from a pc accent like this.

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Logitech MX Artistic Console

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