MX Mechanical Mini Spiel
One of the big reasons why I opened the book on TKL again has less to do with the keyboards themselves. The full-sized keyboard did serve me well, exception of increased shoulder strains I was having. It has more to do with Apple’s stubbornness not to release external biometrics device for Macs (i.e. a button for Touch ID or a webcam for Face ID). If I were to buy a Magic Keyboard for the sake of Touch ID, that would take up space on the desk, and returning to one-laptop setup does not necessarily mitigate this problem — there’s still a keyboard size object on the desk. For the sake of future-proofing myself, I went ahead with Mini.
MX Mechanical Mini is nearly identical, especially the form factors and switches, to the full-sized MX mechanical. The difference is in how it fares without numpads and additional set of hotkeys. I was actually surprised how little customization Mini has. I can’t help but feel Logitech designed the full-sized first, then created a TKL version. There are less number of hotkeys to begin with, and Other keys (navigation keys) are already reserved by the system. In my case, I prefer to have at least one key mapped to sleep and one key for my favorite calculator app. I definitely don’t need all the pre-mapped keys, so finding and memorizing the right icon was more the issue.
Speaking of Mini being an afterthought, there are currently two versions of Mini: one for all, and one with “for Mac”. For the life of me, I don’t see what gave Logitech the idea Mac version is Mac-friendly. Compared to Magic Keyboard, monitor brightness control and Mission Control are missing; two sets of keys I suspect many users would want on their keyboard. My guess is Mini for Mac is an afterthought of an afterthought. Other keys don’t even have hotkey functions etched. Unless you are strictly inclined for the style of the Mac version, grey and white tone, I would recommend getting a standard Mini as it goes on sales more frequently.
Although Mini is being placed on MX line, Logitech’s flagships, I am not particularly moved that MX Mechanical is the best option, let alone MX as a platform in the first place. For example, POP Keys, more affordable line of mechanical keyboard from the same company, is offered at $99.99. POP Keys lack backlight and has circular keycaps. Lack of certain features may be a deal breaker for some, but it costs only the two-third of the flagship model. The other issue is slow migration over to Logi Bolt. For the majority of buyers who choose TKL, numpad is not a necessity. Nevertheless, having an option to connect a numpad, possibly one with more hotkeys, connected to the same wireless receiver is a great benefit. Currently, Logitech simply doesn’t offer numpad keyboard at all. To rub salt into the wound, Logitech is yet to release a TKL sized palm rest, which is quite popular as MX Keys and MX Mechanical are both low profile keyboards.
Conclusions: TKL + Numpad != Full-Sized
Looking at what is currently available, so long as you are willing to use additional USB port, having a set of TKL and a numpad keyboard not only comes out cheaper, it is ergonomically more adaptable. In that sense, I recommend MX Mechanical Mini if you are willing to play around with your setup. However, if you wanted a perfect minimalist setup, — which I believe can still be done with third party softwares — Logitech doesn’t make it easy out of the box. So long as you have an absolute need for full-sized keyboard, Mini is sufficient with enough amount of choices to go around for typists’ preferences.