‘Tiny screens on keyboards are dumb’: Why I think this PC trend needs to die

I’ve been a keyboard nut for a long time. I build mechanical keyboards on my own, soldering iron and all. And I love the excessive way you can customize them, with wireless or wooden keycaps, or all sorts of crazy stuff. But there’s a trend I’ve spotted lately that I cannot abide: Sticking a screen on a keyboard. Stop it, get some help.

Razer. Asus. SteelSeries. Even the budget brands on Amazon are hopping on the trend, and they all seem to be using teeny tiny screens from the same two or three suppliers. I can see this spreading and I want it to stop. It is the epitome of form over function, trend-chasing nonsense. And I say this as someone who can justify buying a keyboard that costs more than a car payment.

Further reading: The one mechanical keyboard feature I can’t live without

You don’t need to look at your keyboard

Here’s a surprising fact about PCWorld’s resident keyboard expert: I’m terrible at typing. I flunked my typing class in middle school, and I just used hunt-and-peck all through college. It wasn’t until I became a professional writer and started typing for eight to twelve hours a day that I learned to touch type.

And “learned” is a generous word in this context. What happened was that my horrible hunt-and-peck technique gradually morphed into touch typing as my muscle memory grew. I can get about 80 words per minute — very slow, by professional standards — but it’s horrible form. I use my left hand for about 75 percent of the actions on the keyboard. My grandmother, who was an office assistant back when “electronic typewriters” were the new hotness, could put me to shame.

But here’s my point. As horrible as my typing actually is in technical terms, I never actually need to look at my keyboard. Even when I’m using tricky gaming macros or adapting to a new keyboard every other week for review purposes, I’m looking at my screen. Because that’s how you use a computer. That’s how a computer works!

Hell, it’s how you use pretty much anything with an interface — I’m betting that you rarely look at the virtual keyboard on your phone unless you’re doing something like putting in a GIF or hunting for the pound sign. Even if you’re still hunting and pecking to type (no shame, you are seen and you are valid!), you’re looking at the keys, not whatever’s above them.

I feel like this isn’t a very complicated concept, but for some reason I have to repeat and emphasize it.

What about gaming?

There’s an argument to be made that keyboards have become complex enough that you need a little more information about what they’re doing, especially for gaming keyboards with complex mechanisms like adjustable actuation. But even as someone who’s repeatedly used these keyboards, I find that a tiny screen next to the keyboard just isn’t necessary.

Take Razer, for example. Razer’s most complex keyboards are the Huntsman line, which uses optical sensors to determine how hard you press each key and adjust the input to your game accordingly. And this can get extremely complicated. We’re talking increments of one tenth of a millimeter, two or three or four functions per key, to say nothing of the controversial Snap Tap.

And yet, the Huntsman didn’t get Razer’s first screen. The BlackWidow V4 Pro 75 percent did — and while that keyboard can do a lot of cool things, true adjustable actuation isn’t one of them. The BlackWidow is Razer’s play for the high-end, customizable, mechanical keyboard enthusiast crowd. The Huntsman, more complex and technically better suited for gamers, does without an individual screen.

And again, it doesn’t need it. The Huntsman’s LED indicators can communicate its settings to the user clearly. If that doesn’t work for you, Razer has its Synapse software, which is a must-have for pretty much any advanced setting on the keyboard anyway. You can see it in both notification and full-fat interface form on your screen.

You know, the screen you’re looking at while you’re gaming. Or typing. Or doing almost literally everything on your computer aside from taking it apart.

I could list similar examples from all the brands that are sticking little screens on their keyboards. (This SteelSeries can show you the battery remaining with its LEDs, again, undercutting the need for a dedicated display!) But suffice it to say, this is completely unnecessary, unless you find a lot of value in a looping GIF right above your keys. This is basically just one more thing to add a screen onto, like your RAM or your CPU cooler.

But you don’t need to take my word for it, because I can show you the receipts.

It’s been tried before

This isn’t the first time that there’s been a trend of sticking screens on keyboards. In the early 2000s (boy it feels weird to say that), multiple keyboard brands tried it, including Logitech and Razer. LCD screens had become cheap and ubiquitous enough that it was a new and exciting possibility.

They eventually dropped these designs. Precisely why, I don’t know… but I’d hazard a guess that they didn’t appeal to users because there wasn’t any added utility, and they added unnecessary expense and complications to keyboards. Which is exactly what they’re doing now.

You don’t even need to restrict the scope to keyboards to see this happening again and again. Apple added a little horizontal touchscreen to its MacBook Pro laptops starting in 2016. If you look for the keyboard screen on the latest Arm-powered MacBooks, you won’t find it, because they were dropped from the final model last year.

When Apple sinks millions of dollars into a design and decides it’s not a good idea, it might just be worth paying attention.

A couple of exceptions

Alright, I’ve been indulging my inner Dvorak curmudgeon for a thousand words or so. But I’m nerdy enough to admit that there are exceptions to every rule. Not every single possible combination of a keyboard and a screen (or should I say an additional screen) is a bad idea.

There are extensions of the standard computer interface that greatly benefit from a little extra data, most notably in things like Elgato’s Stream Deck and similar devices. That’s less of a secondary screen than an extension of programmable buttons, but the Stream Deck+ adds in a screen as well.

Again, it’s not showing you any information that couldn’t be communicated on your monitor or laptop display. But the context and spatial closeness to relevant controls makes it more immediate if you’re doing advanced media stuff. It makes sense.

I’ve also seen keyboards that go all-in on the display as decoration, like this one. That’s more “bling” than utility, and while it doesn’t appeal to me personally, I can at least get behind the purity of purpose. No one’s trying to convince you that this extra bit of flashiness will increase your productivity.

Something that might actually do that is a tiny secondary monitor… though now we’re getting into some extremely niche territory. I think these cyberdeck-style designs are pretty cool, but unfortunately it has no battery and you can’t load up Android or Linux on there and use it as an geeky laptop alternative.

It needs something to drive the display, like a tablet. Or a phone. Or a laptop. And at that point you’ve essentially strapped a USB monitor to a keyboard and made both of them less flexible (and probably more expensive) than they would have been on their own.

I can’t wait for this trend to die

So, there you have it. Tiny screens on keyboards are, in almost every iteration, dumb. They don’t add real utility to any device that already has a screen, especially the gaming PCs that most of these seem to be going for. They’re adding expense and complication that don’t need to be there.

As a keyboard nut myself, I’d advise avoiding them entirely, especially on any wireless board where the screen will drain your battery super-fast. On a wired board it’s less of a drawback… so long as you don’t mind the padded price tag for trend-chasing.

Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer, PCWorld