Thank you Turtle Beach/ROCCAT for sending this to us for review!

We have mechanical keyboards of many types, brands, and switches in my house; we've kind of collected them over the years, partly through reviews, and partly through purchases. We have several with Cherry's switches, some with Kailh, others with Gateron, and a Bluetooth portable one with Outemu switches. My wife and daughters seem to prefer louder blue-type switches, while my son uses a brown low-profile keyboard I reviewed several years ago. Before this point, I was using a brown, and more recently a keyboard with red-style switches.

My only exposure to optical mechanical switches was to a blue switched keyboard my wife reviewed and loved, but I greatly prefer quieter, softer-touch keyboards, and those usually use brown or red-style switches. I've used both, and prefer brown, but I ended up settling on a red-based keyboard for the last several years because the keyboard itself was otherwise excellent, and was better than any brown-style keyboards in my house. However, there were many times I wished I had a brown-style switch again, as reds are so easy to typo on, or I occasionally got a double-bounce more often than I'd like. So, when I was given a chance to review ROCCAT's latest keyboard with brown-style optical switches, it was like a dream come true!

Thinking back, I've been typing for quite a long time now. It's actually been close to thirty years! As such, I've used quite a few keyboards over the decades, with a few that have been with me for an extended time. My earliest keyboards were Keytronic, which was one of the better membrane keyboard makers, and I used those through the 90s and early 2000s, even returning to them after using a Logitech gaming keyboard for a while, as I found Logitech's rubber domes to be stiffer, with less satisfying feedback. I then started to use those funny-looking ergonomic keyboards, as I started to experience hand and wrist pain in the late 2000s/early 2010s. I was never thrilled with the curvy keyboards, but they did help with pain, so I learned to deal with it.

After dealing with the ergonomic keyboards for a while, I discovered mechanicals, and Cherry MX specifically. I found info about them online, but never had a chance to test them. I had tried some IBM Model M buckling spring keyboards, and while they felt (and sounded) great, they still required a fair amount of force, which still made my hands hurt. So, I then realized that lower-force keyboards were what I needed, which means brown or red keys for me.

If you've read my other keyboard reviews, this is somewhat old news; while hand pain isn't totally gone, it is vastly improved. To bring things up to the current day, I used my old Logitech G710+ for a few years, which uses Cherry MX brown switches, and I really like that keyboard, but it's bulky, and the spacebar for some reason isn't reliable. Then I was sent the Cherry MX Board 6.0 to review, and I've used it almost non-stop since I got it - it's a work of art in many ways, but it's seen a ton of use, and is starting to show it. It occasionally double-bounces key presses, several keycaps are quite worn out (enough to shine light through), and the wrist rest (a thing of beauty, I must say) is coming apart. It's a great keyboard, but it's nearing the end of its useful life; it doesn't help that the keycaps are not standard in form.

So here we are: I have a strong desire to upgrade my keyboard, and my standards are high - that Cherry was truly excellent. The good news is that despite some flaws, this ROCCAT is quite impressive - I can honestly say that the build quality, and typing feel - which is to say the strength and rigidity of the typing experience - is in the ballpark of the Cherry, and certainly up to my high standards. I am so incredibly pleased with this thing! So let's drill down into why.

Probably the three most important things for the feel of a keyboard are the stability of the mount, the key switches, and the key caps. Let's drill down to see why each of these is very well done.

First, let's start with the way these are mounted. They are mounted flush with an aluminum plate, and the back of the keyboard has excellent anti-slip strips that keeps it solidly in place. As odd as this may sound, those are some of the best anti-slip strips I've seen, because they are so large! Normally, they are just rubber stoppers on the corners. The actual switches themselves aren't mounted any more solidly than other mechanical keyboards, but the board itself is very stiff with no flex or give to speak of.

Next is the switches. These are ROCCAT's custom optical mechanical tactile switches, and I have to say... I love them. I mean sure they could be a bit lighter to the touch, but then typos might be easier. On almost all of my keyboards, I install O-rings to make the impact hitting the bottom as soft as possible - but I might not need to do that here. I'm still not sure. But they are easy to activate, and have a bit more resistance before hitting the bottom - which is just fantastic. Another thing about them is that rather than just having the Cherry-style '+' key cap connector, they also put a 'box' (kinda like [+]) around the post, which makes the key cap's connection to the switch much more solid. This, along with the generally stable key switch, makes them feel rooted in place - which is fantastic, especially when typing. The keys feel strong and predictable.

The final piece is the key cap itself. While I have to admit I was a bit skeptical about a key cap that has no sides at first, now that I've spent some time with them, any concerns were completely unfounded. Rather than using thin material all around, they made a notably thick top - well over 1mm, perhaps approaching 2mm - and forgo the sides entirely, using all ABS plastic. What this really means is that the part your fingers actually touch, the top of the caps, are really thick and super stiff. It helps that ABS, despite all of the positive press that PBT has been getting in the keyboard world lately, feels great on the fingers, as long as they are strong enough. So, being thicker than your average key cap, and with a hard, strong, shiny finish, they are great to use. Other keys I've tested on there do seem to fit, and based on a cursory glance, I'm reasonably confident that the keys are in standard size/positions, so if you don't like them, order replacements!

Outside of just the great typing experience, we also have the extras. Media keys are something I use constantly - I listen to music quite often when I work (including now!). Having keys right there to play/pause, or switch tracks is invaluable. The real star is the great volume knob though; if you haven't had a keyboard with a volume wheel right there and easy to access, you're in for a treat. It also helps that the knob itself feels great, with solid notches that are a joy to twist through. I will say that I do prefer the type where you can mute it by pressing in on the knob itself, rather than needing a dedicated mute button like this keyboard has, but what can you do. I also wish that the lighting FX key wasn't dedicated, but that spot could be used instead for a more important feature; some keyboards have play/pause or track controls closer to their volume wheels, but you can't always have everything. Fn+F9-F12 is hardly a big problem.

Another thing I noticed is that all of the hot keys (the F1-F12 functions) all work, even if ROCCAT Swarm isn't running, or even if you are in a different operating system. I dual boot my PCs, and I'll switch from Windows to Linux if the mood strikes. I was extremely pleased to see that, as long as you assign your keys and color settings to an onboard profile, you can easily switch to them. So, in my case, if I'm in the mood for green, I press Fn+F2 (my green profile). If I want Blue, it's Fn+F1. I could easily setup Fn+F3 to be Red, or some other color if I so desire. Out of the box, those profiles are some combination of rainbow colors, but I configured them in ROCCAT Swarm, their control software for Windows. There is also AIMO support, which is a protocol all ROCCAT products use so you can synchronize the colors of multiple ROCCAT devices together if you wish, all within Swarm.