In the world of PCs, there is a fashion that has found its place in a few years: the colored loupiots. The famous RGB LEDs are actually found in all types of equipment. And this mode is so important that Microsoft will integrate support for these in Windows 11 under the name Dynamic Lighting.
It’s ugly
The problem with RGB LEDs, it’s that it’s ugly is that it is often useless. More precisely, the interest is often quite limited. The presence of a backlight in a keyboard can of course be interesting, but the ability to display millions of colors or to move waves of colors under the keys does not seem necessary. And above all, this trend is not limited to keyboards. You’ll find LEDs on case surfaces, in fans, on motherboards, graphics cards, sound cards, SSDs, heatsinks, mice, mousepads, SATA cables, monitors, RAM or helmets.
In addition to the more than limited usefulness, they often pose many problems. The first is purely physical: LEDs consume energy and heat up. In the case of RGB SSDs, for example, they have lower performance than classic models, because the LEDs heat up and recover part of the energy that should go to the SSD. On a complete PC, the consumption of the LEDs can approach e.g. a complete Mac mini. The other comes from standardization, which Microsoft is trying to fix with its new option.
Windows 11 will soon be able to control the LEDs in gamer accessories
She is first planned for users of the Insider version of Windows (i.e. the beta), so that the hardware manufacturers can prepare the ground. And that’s the problem: There are different connectors for connecting accessories (including fans) and different protocols. Each brand addresses the LEDs in their own way without necessarily thinking that someone who has a Gigabyte motherboard may have an Asus graphics card and Crucial memory.
For the time being, Apple has had the good idea to stay quite far from this fashion, probably a bit too flashy for the brand. Macs don’t shine brightly, the backlit disappeared from Mac backs years ago, and only certain keyboards light up, with no option to choose a color. And that’s not so bad, even if it’s a highly personal opinion.
