First look: Logitech Craft keyboard with Creative Input dial for macOS

At nearly $200, the Logitech Craft Advanced Keyboard with Creative Input Dial is twice the price of its next closest option. Along with a host of features common to most high-end keyboards, Craft boasts a standout "crown" located on the top-left corner of the device.

This "Creative Input dial" is designed to speed up professional imaging workflows, with initial support for many Adobe apps such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, and InDesign for macOS and Windows. Microsoft's Office suite is supported in Windows — but at present there is no support on the Mac.

Our initial impressions of the hardware itself are good. The keyboard feels solid, and the typing experience is excellent, reminiscent of Apple's Retina MacBook Pro.

The dial has sufficient heft and resistance, and automatically switches between clicking and smooth turning based on the application and setting. So far, we are surprised by how intuitive the dial is to use — in the limited software suite that directly supports it, of course.

So far, the biggest drawback we've seen appears to be software. Beyond severely limited support, we also saw quite a few bugs in general use on macOS.

The Logitech Craft doesn't ship until October, so we're hoping that the core Logitech software will be smoothed out before launch, and we'll be looking for better third-party integrations going forward.

In the coming weeks we will be using the Craft advanced keyboard with multiple applications and will report back with our full review after its release.