A mechanical keyboard with a vibration-absorbing cushioned gasket design? Plus hot-swappable switches for customizers or do-it-yourselfers? That's something you'd expect from a boutique vendor like Keychron or NuPhy, not mass-marketer Logitech—and probably for $150 or more instead of $119.99. But the Alto Keys K98M is both a more stylish and more affordable successor to Logitech's MX Mechanical Keyboard. Indeed, only one odd layout quirk keeps it from joining the Razer Pro Type Ultra in Editors' Choice and top-recommendation territory.

Design: The Colors Are Dull, Duller, and Dynamic

Among Logitech's 40-plus keyboards, the Alto Keys K98M straddles a couple of segments: office productivity and mechanical/enthusiast. It's available in three colors, each with a contrasting space bar and Enter key: dark graphite; generic off-white; or (our review unit) a vivid lilac that would look at home on the desk of a K-Pop Demon Hunter. Alas, the boring hues have a higher percentage of recycled plastic—25 percent and 19 percent, respectively, versus a paltry 10 percent for the lilac.

(Credit: Eric Grevstad)

At 1.6 by 15.8 by 5.8 inches (HWD), the Alto Keys offers a slightly trimmer footprint than most full-sized wireless keyboards, though it weighs a husky 2.43 pounds. The 98-key layout—Logitech sells a tenkeyless K75M version in Asia that may hit the States soonish—includes a numeric keypad but not the six-key cluster (Insert, Delete, Home, End, Page Up, Page Down) usually seen above the cursor arrow keys.

That's the layout kink that knocks a star off our review rating. The four keys above the keypad are labeled Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down—but Home also acts as a Delete key, and is labelled as such. To get the plain old Home function, you must combine the key with the Fn on the right-hand side of the space bar.

If you want a dedicated or one-finger Home key for navigating through documents or spreadsheets, you must turn Num Lock off and use the 7 key on the keypad. What's more, you have to make the change with an on-screen pop-up, not a handy LED-lighted key like Caps Lock. You can adjust to that setup, but it strikes us as a design blunder.

(Credit: Eric Grevstad)

Features: Form and Function

The keyboard's underside holds two pop-out feet to add an optional typing tilt, as well as a slot to stash the Logi Bolt USB-A wireless receiver (which can also handle a Logitech mouse such as the MX Master 4). You can also connect the keyboard via Bluetooth, switching among up to three devices with the F1 through F3 keys.

(Credit: Eric Grevstad)

The keyboard offers Start/Opt and Alt/Cmd key combos, and lets you switch between Mac and Win mode by holding Fn+O or P for three seconds. (A sliding switch would be easier.) The Alto also works with Linux, ChromeOS, iOS, and Android.

(Credit: Eric Grevstad)

The Alto Keys comes with a short USB-C-to-A cable for charging its internal battery. Plugging it in for four hours will give you a full charge, and Logitech boasts that the juice will last you a full 12 months—provided you leave the white backlight off. The F4 key lets you cycle through seven levels of backlight brightness, which you can see through the stencil-style legends on the PBT keycaps.

Switches and Software

Under the K98M's transparent top, you'll find what Logitech calls a UniCushion full-frame gasket mount, with padding to reduce vibration for smoother typing. The keys themselves are marble linear switches models with a light touch (40 grams of force), actuated 1.9mm into their 3.2mm travel. They're rated for 50 million keystrokes, not the longest lifespan on the market but many times that of membrane switches.

That key feel is aimed at mech-keyboard newbies, but tech tinkerers can swap in most 3- or 5-pin high-profile mechanical switches. You'll need to supply your own keycap and switch puller, though.

(Credit: Eric Grevstad)

Conventional wisdom says that gamers love linear switches, which emphasize speed and smoothness, while serious typists favor the feedback and accuracy of tactile switches. (Indeed, Logitech's MX Mechanical is available with a choice of linear, tactile, or clicky.) I'm a typist, not a gamer, but I've liked both, and I like the Alto Keys' linears: They won't please users who crave a stiff, springy click, but have a smooth, almost lubricated, precise feel for light, rapid typing, accompanied by a quiet, ticky sound. The K98M stays comfortable through lengthy work sessions.

The Logi Options+ software is a decent command center, once you toggle off "recommendations" (i.e. ads for other Logitech products). But the customization is limited to the top-row F4 through F12 and End, Page Up, and Page Down keys. By default, they perform functions ranging from useful (F5 dictation, F7 screen capture) to inane (F6 emojis), but you can remap them to shortcuts such as launching ChatGPT or an AI prompt builder to rephrase or summarize text or one of 50-odd commands. (Note that the board doesn't offer a Copilot key.) You can save different key assignments for different applications.

(Credit: Logitech/PCMag)

"Smart actions," which are stored in the cloud and require a username and password, include macros such as meeting mode (launching Zoom and Notepad), work mode (Gmail, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint), and "social media break" (opening Chrome tabs with Instagram, YouTube, and WhatsApp). Options+ loses points for not letting you customize keystrokes such as Ctrl+F10, though you can do that with the Keyboard Manager of Windows PowerToys.