Plenty of mechanical keyboards battle with aesthetics. It’s laborious to get proper! If the styling is overdone, you would possibly inhibit performance or simply have an excessive amount of happening visually. In the event you persist with the fundamentals, you would possibly find yourself with a bland keyboard. Whichever approach you go, there’s nonetheless an opportunity you’ll get it fallacious and have one thing that doesn’t look good.
However there’s been an inflow of actually well-designed keyboards of late: Keychron’s K2 HE Particular Version is a superb instance, together with the Mchose GX87 Extremely, to not point out the numerous high-end customized keyboard kits accessible at the moment. With most of those keyboards, keycaps take a backseat—even when they appear good, they’re often pretty customary and minimal.
Asus takes the other method with the ROG Azoth X: A easy white case, however colourful and stylized keycaps. It’s not essentially the most standard design, however they appear actually good and handle to brighten up a desk with out taking up your setup. This keyboard manages to look good with out sacrificing substance—the Azoth X has 2.4 GHz and Bluetooth connectivity, 1,000-Hz polling, and an inside meeting that makes it each enjoyable to kind on and straightforward to switch. It is accessible in white with both click on or linear NX switches, and features a silicone wrist relaxation. All that prices a reasonably penny, although, at $300.
Deep and Snappy Typing
{Photograph}: Henri Robbins
This keyboard is most akin to Razer’s BlackWidow V4 75% in typing expertise. Each use a steel high case and a plastic backside case with a gasket mount system and a plastic plate. The stiffness is comparable, as are the sound profiles. The most important distinction is the swap choices: Razer’s 75% keyboard is barely accessible with tactile switches, whereas Asus provides linear and clicky switches.
The unit I acquired got here with Asus’s Snow linear switches. These are a reasonably gentle linear swap with a deeper typing sound and a constant smoothness all through your entire keypress. They aren’t the smoothest switches I’ve examined, however the friction felt when typing is each minimal and constant, leading to a typing expertise that’s nonetheless pleasing. These switches even have minimal stem wobble, which means keypresses really feel secure and assured when typing. They require much less pressure than a Cherry MX Crimson swap, requiring 53 grams of pressure to completely backside out in comparison with the MX Crimson’s 60 grams. This distinction is noticeable and makes the switches really feel extra responsive with out as a lot threat of mis-inputs in comparison with a really light-weight (sub-50g) spring.
The gasket-mounting system that holds the keyboard in place appears like a mixture between a gasket mount and an o-ring mount, for the reason that rubber gaskets are pressed tightly into the within of the case. This implies the typing really feel is constant throughout your entire keyboard, and feels extra related to the case in comparison with a regular foam gasket. It nonetheless has a number of the bounce and softness anticipated from a gasket mount, however it’s lower than many comparable keyboards.
The stabilizers within the Azoth X are customary plate-mounted, lubed from the manufacturing facility. Whereas plate-mount stabilizers are sometimes going to really feel much less secure than PCB-mount, those used right here nonetheless really feel good and haven’t any rattle out of the field.
House-Age Aesthetics
{Photograph}: Henri Robbins
There are lots of issues I like concerning the design. The keycaps are barely flatter than the typical keycap and have a two-piece meeting with a clear again for RGB diffusion. The case has a modern and angular design that appears trendy and space-age with out taking over lots of room.