Reply to Midi Keyboard

I am looking into buying a midi keyboard for my production use with abelton. I dont need anything fancy and am looking into either the Akai Professional LPK25 25-Key, or the Akai Professional MPK Mini 25-Key. I see that the mini has a few more features (pads and knobs as well) but im not sure if I really need them.

Can anyone make a recommendation between them? or can someone suggest another option I should look into? I'm mainly going to be using just to play midi notes on VSts.

Also if you have knobs and pads on your keyboard, how do you use them?

Thanks