Logitech MX Keys Mini For Mac

Verdict

The Logitech MX Keys Mini For Mac is an excellent wireless office keyboard for macOS with sleek looks, comfortable scissor-actuated keys and fantastic software. It also provides solid battery life and thoughtful touches elsewhere and while expensive, is a brilliant option for Mac users.

Introduction

The Logitech MX Keys Mini for Mac is part of a wider drive of the Swiss brand’s push for Mac-specific peripherals.

It follows on from other top-class Logitech keyboards that are compatible with macOS such as the MX Keys S and Signature Slim K950, while offering competition in the Mac keyboard sector with the likes of the CHERRY KW 7100 MINI BT FOR MAC, in spite of its higher price.

At £109.99/$99.99/€119, though, it’s a lot more expensive than some of the competition, so has to do a lot to justify its place as one of the best wireless keyboards we’ve tested. I’ve been using it for the last few weeks to see just how good it is.

Design

• Modern, Mac-inspired design
• Compact layout is easy to adjust to for laptop users
• Convenient touches elsewhere

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the MX Keys Mini For Mac resembles its much larger brother, the MX Keys S or standard MX Keys, and just comes with a smaller layout – it is mini, after all. This means you’re getting a modern look with a two-tone space grey chassis and black keycaps which matches well with modern Macs for a unified look. If you want to go for a more classic Mac colourway, then it also available in a white and grey two-tone that Logitech calls Pale Grey.

For such a slender keyboard, the MX Keys Mini For Mac’s 506.4g weight is quite hefty, and it’s clear from picking it up that this is a premium ‘board. There’s no deck flex in the chassis, while its blend of metal and plastic feel excellent.

This is a 65 percent layout keyboard, in-keeping with its nature as a mini keyboard, offering alphanumeric keys, as well as the added benefit of a function row and arrow keys in the bottom right corner. It’s a convenient layout to use that mirrors the keyboard tray in modern Macs, so there should be little in the way of an adjustment period between using a laptop keyboard and the MX Keys Mini For Mac instead.

What’s also in-keeping with more recent Logitech peripherals such as the MX Keys S is the changes in the function row. They may be small changes, but the MX Keys Mini For Mac features a dedicated emoji key (F7),as well as voice dictation (F6) and one for the snipping tool (F8). That last one is particularly useful as it saves the finger gymnastics needed for accessing the snip tool on macOS, and is also reflective of the changing needs of users, too.

There are also handy quality of life features elsewhere, such as reactive backlighting which turns on when it senses your fingers on keys, as well as spherical indents in the keycaps to help guide your fingers for typing. Those guides are present on all keys, and make a difference for getting up to speed.

Elsewhere, the MX Keys Mini For Mac comes with the same bar across the top back side to raise its default angle up for a more comfortable typing angle out of the box. However, that angle is fixed, and there aren’t any retractable feet for adjusting the angle further, which is a bit of a shame.

As with other Logitech products, this latest keyboard’s packaging is also fully recyclable, being cardboard. The keyboard also comes wrapped in paper and there isn’t any plastic here, either. The MX Keys Mini For Mac is also partially manufactured from PCR, or post consumed recycled plastic, which is a nice touch.

Performance

• Reliable scissor-actuated keypress
• Solid connectivity
• Excellent battery life

Inside, the MX Keys Mini For Mac utilises a scissor-actuated membrane in a similar vein to other Logitech MX keyboards, meaning you can expect a snappy and responsive keypress with rather positive actuation. It may not be mechanical, but nonetheless provides an excellent typing experience.

The MX Keys Mini For Mac serves up a lot of tactility for such a short travel, and felt excellent for my day-to-day tasks and work which, funnily enough, involves typing a lot of words up. For this enviable task, the MX Keys Mini For Mac felt fantastic and was comfortable for extended periods, especially thanks to its crisp keypress and spherical indents in the keys helping to guide my fingers well.

Wireless connectivity is taken care of via both Bluetooth and the bundled Logi Bolt receiver, on up to three devices. The MX Keys Mini For Mac worked well over both means, and switching between the three channels with dedicated buttons on the keyboard’s function row is also a doddle. It played nicely with both an older MacBook Air and my M1 Pro MacBook Pro without a hitch, too.

Battery life here is identical to its bigger brother too, which is excellent considering this is a smaller keyboard. The 10 days with the white backlighting on is solid, while getting up to 5 months charge from its USB-C rechargeable cell without is fantastic. It means you can essentially turn the keyboard on, pair it, and forget about charging it. In my few weeks with the MX Keys Mini For Mac, I only had to charge it once.

Software and Lighting

• Bright and thoughtful backlighting
• Options+ remains fantastic software

The MX Keys Mini For Mac comes with a smart, single-colour white backlight, which not only complements the look of the overall keyboard, but also allows for vibrant illumination around the keys for after-dark working. This is also some clever backlighting as it’s reactive to both the ambient light in the room and to your hand position. If you move away from the keyboard, the lighting turns off, but if MX Keys Mini For Mac senses your hand is over the keys, it turns back on. That’s clever.

Software support is taken care of with Logitech’s useful Options+ suite. This allows for programming of the keyboard’s function row for everything from remapping basic functions to assigning certain keys for Logitech’s clever Smart Actions. Smart Actions have been present in Logitech’s software for the last year or so.

Essentially, these are clever macros for productivity tasks, and with them you can open multiple apps or websites with a single button press. For instance, if you want to open Google Chrome and open Gmail, X and Spotify in one go, then you can and you can even add a delay in between each action so each website loads fully. Or, if you want to open work apps such as Slack or Microsoft Word in a jiffy, then away you go.

The MX Keys Mini For Mac also benefits (or not, depending on your perspective) from Logitech’s AI Actions which were first introduced with the Signature AI Edition M750 mouse and its AI prompt builder. This offers you a shortcut to a ChatGPT 3.5 window where you can ask the AI questions, or prompt it by asking for a phrase in a certain tone. This may help you in your day-to-day workloads, although it wasn’t for me.

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