I've tried one other gameboard (Belkin n52te), and thought that it was great. The one thing I didn't like about it was the digital thumbstick and the fact that it didn't depress to act as a button. Enter the Logitech G13. This thing pretty much saved the day, once I got my hand(s) on it.To start off with, it's a lot bigger than the n53te, so make sure you have enough room for it. With my mouse, keyboard, and the G13 all taking up space on the slide-out keyboard shelf of my computer desk, I find that the G13 and keyboard have to fight for their turn to have focus. There's simply not enough room to have them all laid out next to one another. The nice thing about this, though, is that other than typing out text, the G13 replaces every single keystroke I'd ever use on the keyboard for controlling games.Speaking of games, I am an avid MMORPG junkie. I play Warhammer Online (my MMORPG de jour for now) every chance I get and for many hours at a time. That's what lead me on my journey to find a better way of rapidly executing the various abilities my characters have. A simple game controller wouldn't suffice, since there are simply way too many abilities that need to be mapped to buttons. I found out about these gamepads almost a year ago and bought the n52te after a little research. After reading a thread in a forum that discussed the G13, it sounded like it had all the features I felt were missing from the n52te, so I bought it.The packaging it arrived in was secure, so nobody should have to worry about damage during transit. As I unboxed it the reality of how monstrous this thing is really hit home. It was huge, and I was unsure whether it would fit on my slide-out tray with the keyboard & mouse. I was able to squeeze it in after pushing the keyboard back a bit (keyboard is a Saitek Gamer's keyboard, mouse is a Razer Death Adder.) As usual I didn't bother installing the software from the box, and went to the website instead. Finding a driver was a snap, and I downloaded and installed the latest drivers.There are, oddly enough, two separate programs that run in the tray for the G13. One is the LCD screen management app, and the other is the gameboard programming app. I'm not quite sure why these couldn't be integrated with one another. I'll get into the programming app later in the review.Hand placement felt good. The buttons are nice and large, and their surface is concave, allowing the user to feel where their fingers are at without any danger of them sliding off and losing track of which keys they're on. It sounds silly, but after you have a gameboard with flat buttons you'll really appreciate this. The gameboard keys are also laid out on a surface that curves in towards the center, allowing for more comfortable operation as opposed to a flat surface which forces the user to rotate their fingers in ways they really aren't meant to. The only drawback is there is no way to adjust for larger or smaller hands. One size fits all. The n52te was somewhat adjustable.Keys? Wow are there a lot of them! There's so many that unfortunately my fingers can't stretch far enough to hit them all comfortably. However, I don't think of this as a problem. I would MUCH rather have too many keys than too little. I still use the fringe keys infrequently for character abilities that don't need to be accessed very often. Also, the only keys that are really able to be accessed rapidly without having to curl your fingers up are the top two rows. I occasionally press one of the third row buttons, but it's rare. Maybe I just need to adapt more? Only time will tell I suppose.The analog thumbstick is both a blessing and a curse, and really the only thing I have a problem with. I say it's a blessing because a digital thumbstick (like the one on the n52te) is just horrible. I found myself stuck in limbo frequently with the n52te because I was moving the thumbstick from the North to West position, and the thumbstick would stop sending a signal as I moved it between these states. Also, one of the big things I wished for on the n52te was that the thumbstick act as a button if you push down on it. This was all solved with the G13. The thumbstick is analog, allowing for a full range of motion without that "clicky" feel as you maneuver it. The thumbstick also acts as an additional button when you depress it. The curse is that the thumbstick itself feels awful. The hat on it is way too small, leaving the user to feel like they're trying to use the eraser end of a pencil to move around. It's a real shame too, because everything else about this gameboard is absolutely terrific.The gameboard lighting is also really cool. There are 3 modes that can be cycled through, so all of the keys you see are effectively TRIPLED. Yeah. This thing is *insane* with the coverage it has when it comes to duplicating everything you can assign to a standard keyboard. Anyway, each mode has its own color of light, and the color can be selected using the gameboard editor. There are a lot of different colors to choose from also, so you're not pigeon-holed into only a handful of choices.The LCD screen is a very nice touch. It can report all sorts of in-game statistics, and can be set to receive RSS feeds from the news, display computer info such as CPU load, the time & date, and all sorts of other statistics. The LCD screen can apparently be programmed by anyone, so you can write your own custom G13 LCD screen plug-in to display literally anything you want. Unfortunately as of this writing Warhammer Online only displays its icon, and I've seen it sometimes display a message stating that I'm not queued for any scenarios (you have to play Warhammer Online to know what I'm talking about here.)The gameboard programming software is simple and easy to use. Making macros is a breeze. One of the other big gripes I had about the n52te was with programming simple keyboard combinations. You want to assign a button on the gameboard to Ctrl+1? Sorry, the n52te software will only recognize the first button you press, so you only get Ctrl. To assign combinations you have to create a macro. Ugh! Not with the G13. It easily recognizes Ctrl/Alt/Shift modifiers, and even goes so far as to recognize *which* one you've pressed, whether it's right or left. Making a macro is nice and easy too, and you can copy & paste them between different modes to set up the device fairly rapidly.So to sum up...Pros:- LCD screen is fantastic and provides a great means to display information- TONS of keys that are tripled via mode switching- Concave keys and surface which creates a comfortable surface for the hand- Analog thumbstick as opposed to digital- Many lighting color schemes to choose from- Easy to use programming softwareCons:- It's HUGE- The analog thumbstick's surface is too small- Not adjustable to accommodate small or large hands- Since there are so many keys, some are simply impractical for frequent use since they're so far apartThe pros so overwhelmingly make up for the trivial cons that I cannot emphasize enough how great this gameboard is. It's just one of those things you must try to truly appreciate. I will also give a disclaimer that there is *always* a learning curve when it comes to these devices. If you have never used a gameboard before, you will find yourself lost until your hand can seek out the buttons and operate the thumbstick without having to think about it. Once it becomes natural for you to use it, that's when the lightbulb will come on over your head and you'll wonder how you ever played games without one.