Logitech’s K400 is the perfect living room keyboard

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

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Using a PC in your living room is never as easy as you want it to be, but having the right accessories can make it better. A few years ago, when I started using my computer to game in my living room more, I picked up a Logitech K400 keyboard.

A few years later, it’s still going strong, so I’ve decided to review it.

The K400 is built for the living room. It includes a small keyboard and trackpad. The keyboard also features four special buttons: Mute, volume down, volume up, and another button that allows you to left-click with your left hand, but more on that later.

The keyboard experience is fine, but I wouldn’t buy it if you plan to type a lot. That being said, I used it to write this story, and it has a solid layout and decent key travel. It’s a Logitech keyboard, and it works. What did you expect? The keys are a little closer to one another than I’d prefer, but overall, it gets the job done. At the end of each keypress, you can feel the mushiness of the membrane below the buttons, so I would 100 percent avoid this for gaming.

The trackpad on the keyboard’s right side is better than you’d expect, but it’s not good. It’s cramped, so while I might be able to flick my cursor around moderately quickly on my computer monitor, once I scale up to a PC on a TV screen, it gets a lot more tedious. The buttons below it are again fine, but not the greatest with a boring click. As I mentioned earlier, a special button in the top right corner acts like a left click. Therefore, if you’re standing and holding this keyboard in two hands, you can click with your left hand and move the cursor with your right. This is actually a really well-thought-out button, and I find myself using it sometimes.

While the K400 keyboard/trackpad layout works fine, I’ve also used the Logitech K380 (replaced by the Pebble keys K380S), and I love its chiclet keys. For a cheap plastic keyboard, it feels great to type on, and the smaller keys allow for more space between the letters, so I find I mispress characters less. If Logitech made a version of this with a trackpad, I would be very tempted to switch up.

The K400 isn’t rechargeable, and it runs off two AA batteries that last roughly 18th months). I haven’t changed the batteries in a little over a year.

“If all you need is something to click through the Steam interface while you boot up your games, you can’t go wrong with this.”

Inside the battery compartment, there’s a little space for a Logitech Unifying Receiver. There’s no Bluetooth in the K400, but secretly I love how convenient the unifying receiver is. Over the years, I’ve had a few bug out on me, but I’m always able to reset them with the Logitech Unifying software.

Overall, I’d prefer a slightly better media centre keyboard, but since I’m not really willing to splurge on one that costs more than the K400’s super affordable $40 price tag (it goes on sale often), I’m sticking with it since it gets the job done. The K400 fulfils all the promises you’d expect from a cheap keyboard, but the 2-in-1 nature of the device makes it great for the living room. If all you need is something to click through the Steam interface while you boot up your games, you can’t go wrong with this.

I’m always on the hunt for unique gadgets so if you have a living room keyboard that you love, please reach out to me on Twitter or Threads @thebradfad and share it!

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