Logitech MX Artistic Console evaluation: choose your individual buttons

Not less than for now, your laptop or desktop pc is inherently extra succesful than a smartphone or tablet. What you lose, sticking to the classics, is a number of the interface simplicity of a telephone. Utilizing a desktop pc to it is fullest means getting snug with keyboard shortcuts, particularly in case you plan on utilizing any sort 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 throughout the pandemic WFH period, although, largely due to the recognition of the Stream Deck, which was designed in the beginning for controlling livestreams, however whose buttons may very well be personalized to work with a bunch of various purposes.

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. In the event you’re not utilizing an formally supported app it may well take so much to arrange, nevertheless it’s a number of 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 regulate Adobe software program however can work with absolutely anything in your pc in case you’re prepared to set it up.

Professionals & Cons

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

• Organising buttons can take a number of time
• Not each suitable app receives the identical degree of help

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Worth, availability, and specs

The Logitech MX Artistic Console launched in September 2024 for $200, the next worth than the $100 you pay for an entry-level Stream Deck Neo. You should purchase the MX Artistic Console instantly 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 greater costs is that you simply’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’ll be able to 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 largely fabricated from plastic — save for the dialpad’s cool metallic 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 in the beginning (Photoshop, Illustrator Premiere Professional, Lightroom Traditional, After Results, and Audition), however offers plugins for different apps, like Zoom, Microsoft Groups, and Closing Lower Professional, you can obtain.

Much more importantly, any keyboard shortcut might be assigned to a button or different management with the Logi Choices + app, which implies any app can have a profile made for it in case you actually 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 capable of justify shopping for one due to the sort 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 crucial creates the phantasm of productiveness enhancements with out truly altering something. Fortunately, even when it does not totally make sense for my job, primarily based 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 keep in mind the title 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, clean, and able to extra finesse than a mouse for tweaking settings, and whenever you’re just a few layers deep enhancing one thing, that is what you need.

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It is also fairly easy 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 may cease there and be fairly properly off, particularly in case you largely 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 grow to be a button with a customizable icon. And within the case of the dial or curler, you’ll be able to even assign actions (or keys) to be just about pressed alongside no matter you need your bodily changes to correspond to. It takes work to make these, however you might have a shocking quantity of flexibility by way of the buttons and controls you’ll be able to create, and on the important thing pad, what every button appears to be like 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’s kind of annoying to have one accent that is wi-fi and one other that is wired, however there’s probably cause 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 situation 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 among the polish that is likely to be current if it was simply targeted on the Logitech MX Artistic Console. For instance, it appears like the corporate ought to’ve accomplished extra to make constructing setups for apps with out profiles simpler. There is not any software program characteristic that might have recognized and added out there app shortcuts mechanically? Even when I then needed to go in and edit these mechanically added shortcuts, I nonetheless would’ve most popular that annoyance to including every part 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 trouble internet hosting a market for profiles a yr or two from now? There’s nothing to recommend 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 so much 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 at the moment utilizing your software program is an effective factor.

It prompts a sort of digital spring-cleaning, manual-reading, and group that can at all times go away you in a greater place. You may 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 are already doable with keyboard shortcuts, the MX Artistic Console is enjoyable, useful, and most significantly, versatile. That is all you’ll be able to actually ask for from a pc accent like this.

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Logitech MX Artistic Console

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