Logitech Signature Slim Solar+ K980 review - the 10-year battery life keyboard

The Logitech Signature Slim Solar+ K980 is a new mid-range addition to the company's slim and sleek office keyboard lineup with a unique feature: a built-in solar panel. Thanks to this and an internal battery, this keyboard can last for years without ever needing to be plugged in.

Years-long battery life isn't exactly the highest priority for most people reading our best gaming keyboard buyers' guide, but there are loads of situations where it's a very nice-to-have feature. To see just how nice, we put Logitech's latest to the test over the course of a few weeks, which obviously isn't anywhere near enough to test the limits of this keyboard's longevity, but thanks to Logitech's software, we were able to see in real-time how the solar panel was able to keep the internal battery topped up as we typed.

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Specs

Design and Features

The Logitech Signature Slim Solar+ K980 carries on the styling Logitech established with its MX Keys line of office keyboards, with it having a simple gray color throughout, a slim profile, and rounded corners. The addition of the solar panel along the top edge slightly disrupts the look but, by and large, it's an elegant keyboard that looks just as at home in a minimalist, lavish office setup as it does next to a gaming PC, even if it is perhaps a little too plain to take pride of place next to an RGB-filled behemoth of a gaming machine.

Speaking of RGB, this immediately brings us to one feature lacking on this keyboard, which is backlighting for the keys. Indeed, it's this feature that most fundamentally distinguishes this keyboard from the MX Keys lineup, other than the solar panel. In any sort of reasonable lighting, this doesn't affect the keyboard's usability at all, but in a truly dimly lit or outright dark room, the keys aren't legible - not ideal for playing gloomy games in a darkened room.

The key legends themselves (the letters and symbols on the keys) are screen-printed on, which is typical for this type of keyboard, but means that, in theory, they will be prone to the paint wearing away with use. In comparison, many modern gaming keyboards - such as the Be Quiet! Dark Mount, for instance - use keys with legends formed via harder-wearing methods. For instance, double-shot legends are made from a second layer of plastic embedded in the keycap itself, while dub-sublimated keys have the legend effectively melted into the surface of the key.

Most of this keyboard is well under 10mm thick, with a thicker 16mm section running along the back edge, where it raises the back to create a better typing angle. This angle can't be changed via extra flip-down feet, as you see on most keyboards, so if you prefer a more upright angle, you're out of luck, but I found I got on very well with this low-angle design.

Six small rubber feet stop the keyboard sliding around, and the only other feature of note, anywhere other than on the top of the keyboard, is the sliding power switch on the back edge. With a rechargeable battery inside and no USB port for charging, this keyboard doesn't need a battery compartment or any other breaks in its chassis. The rechargeable battery isn't user serviceable, but Logitech's claim that it lasts 10 years means you'll have a long time before you have to think about whether a repair person can swap the battery, or you consider risking the board's warranty and prying those rubber feet off to dismantle it yourself and get to its battery.

Up top, you'll find a standard selection of keys for a full-size keyboard (here in a UK ISO configuration, rather than US ANSI layout). Joining this standard array are four dedicated extra keys in the top right corner, which, from left to right, default to opening the calendar, muting your mic (app dependent), turning off your camera (app dependent), and locking your PC.

To the left of these are three more buttons that select which device the keyboard is connected to. The keyboard can connect to three Bluetooth devices at once, including Logitech's universal wireless dongles. With Logitech's software, you can even copy from one PC and paste it to another if you have the software installed on both systems.

As well as the screen-printed Windows keyboard legends, there are legends for Macs too, so this is an ideal keyboard for those switching between a MacBook for work and a PC for gaming, for instance. The top row of F keys defaults to a set of extra functions, including screen brightness adjustment, playback controls, and multi-desktop view. Hitting the Fn key with any of these will flip it back to being an F key, or you can configure these to work the other way round with Logitech's software.

Performance

Overall, the build quality of the board is decent. It does flex if you pick it up in two hands and twist it from either end, but the way the full length of the front edge and back foot rest on your desk means there's no flex in the middle of the board as you type. In fact, the typing experience here is excellent. The keys feel crisp and responsive, with a decent amount of resistance and a very defined break, all without feeling too stiff and requiring an overly hard press.

Logitech has used a laptop-like scissor switch in this board, and while these don't have the longevity of mechanical keyboards - full-size or low-profile - I've tended to find that these types of switches last longer than full-size rubber dome switches as you get on thicker, cheaper keyboards.

That said, if you are a heavy typist, you are likely to find this board's keys/switches give up the ghost well before that impressive 10-year battery life. In my career, spending all day writing thousands of words and gaming on keyboards, I've found that typical scissor switch keyboards can sometimes start to lose their responsiveness within a year or two. In contrast, I've had mechanical keyboards last over a decade without issue. It's simply too early to say how this board might fare, though, and Logitech doesn't make a claim about the keyswitch life, but unless you're a particularly heavy user, it shouldn't be a major concern.

What Logitech does make a claim about, of course, is the battery life of this board. The company hasn't provided a figure for the capacity of the battery, but it claims it will last four months when used in total darkness.

Unleash the keyboard into the light and it will use its solar panel to continuously top-up the charge on the board and, well, literally last 10 years (and quite possibly longer, but that's the official Logitech figure).

For those familiar with using solar-powered products, you may wonder how much light is required to keep it charging. Logitech says it will charge at anything above 200lux. In practice, a small desk lap with a 2W/200 lumen bulb or a ceiling light with a 5W/450 lumen bulb shining fairly directly at the board is sufficient to get it charging, while the merest hint of sunlight in a room is more than enough.

Price

The Logitech Signature Slim Solar+ K980 price is $99.99 / £99.99, making this a premium but not ultra-expensive keyboard. Considering its solar-charging and never-ending battery abilities, it's largely a very reasonable price to pay. However, the lack of backlighting and use of plain printed legends on the keys mean there are a couple of areas that slightly dampen its sense of value.

Verdict

For the most part, I'm something of a convert to the Logitech Signature Slim Solar+ K980. As someone who spends 80%+ of their time at a computer to work, with most of that time spent typing, the complete lack of any sense of effort being involved with using this keyboard really appeals. Once the dongle's plugged in and you're connected, you don't need to ever think about plugging in a cable or anything else. It's just there, ready to go in its slim, portable, fairly elegant form.

Add in its easy device switching, useful secondary key functions, and Logitech's excellent Options+ software for streamlining your workflow, and this really is a fantastic working tool.

That said, for gaming, it is completely devoid of any meaningful features, so it's neither ultra-fast-responding nor packed with gaming buttons or game-specific profile-switching cleverness. And you can forget about rapid trigger and other analog cleverness. All that's to be expected, though.

Instead, my only main gripes are the lack of backlighting on the keys, the screen-printed legends on the keys, and the overall key action. That's because, while the action is largely excellent, the sheer amount that I type means that I sometimes prefer a lighter-feeling keyboard that doesn't aggravate my RSI. While the keys here are far from heavy-feeling, they're not as light as a quality, linear mechanical keyswitch, and their shorter travel means you bottom out the keys a lot more than a full-size mechanical switch board.

Can you see the appeal of an everlasting, solar-powered keyboard, or does it seem like a fairly pointless feature? Let us know your thoughts over on our community Discord server, where you can talk to us and like-minded readers about PC tech, gaming, and more.