I took the keyboard for personal use, to replace my beloved, but already dying, ten-year-old Microsoft Sidewinder x6. T.To. I couldn’t find any normal reviews on the RuNet, so I decided to write a short review myself. And then there’s the competition, but due to inattention, forgetfulness and general carelessness, I forgot to send it on time. But don’t let the good go to waste..
Introduction
The Aorus brand is a line of gaming devices from the well-known Taiwanese giant, which includes the advanced achievements of Gigabyte. The Aorus brand produces a number of premium products aimed at the gaming segment – from computer components and peripherals to backpacks and mouse pads. One of these products is the Aorus K7 mechanical gaming keyboard, and we’ll talk about it.
Characteristics
The keyboard comes in a fairly large box, with beautiful color printing. The front side of the box shows the keyboard and its name, and the back side shows its key features. The box looks quite high quality and is not overloaded with text. Along the edges of the box are the name of the keyboard, characteristics, kit, and a QR code with a link to the product page.
In the box itself we will find a keyboard in a carrying case, 8 additional keycaps, a wire keycap puller, 2 pieces of paper – a quick guide and instructions with hotkeys, as well as a metal sticker with the Aorus logo. The latter is listed on the website, but in my case it was missing, it’s a shame..
Appearance
The keyboard is made in the “skeleton” format. The keys rise above the aluminum plate with a signature orange edging. The plate itself is curved down closer to the user, so that the palm and thumb do not cling to it while playing or typing. The edges of the plate are quite sharp, this is especially felt at the bend of the plate. The keyboard size does not seem large, even with a numpad. Neither the plate itself nor the matte keys collect fingerprints and dust. However, when pressed, the plate bends slightly. This does not interfere with using the keyboard and playing on it, but some may not like it.
The keyboard is full-size – 104 keys, there are no additional keys, the player and sound are controlled via a combination with the [Fn] key, which I will discuss in more detail below. Classic, American (ANSI) layout – single-row Enter and long Backspace and Shift. A feature that immediately catches your eye is the “shift” of the F1 – F8 keys to the left, about half a key from the usual location, while the F9-F12 key block remained in its usual place, which is why the distance between F8 and F9 is greater than between F4 and F5. You get used to it quite quickly and stop paying attention after the first day of using the keyboard. Between the right alt and control, there are 2 keys: WinLk, which replaced the useless context menu key, and the [Fn] key, with which you can control the backlight and multimedia. Above the numpad we see the illuminated Aorus logo, and 4 lock indicators – standard Num lock, Caps lock, Scroll lock and a separate Win Lock indicator indicating the Windows key is locked. The indicators glow white regardless of the keyboard backlight settings. Below the numpad there is the inscription Aorus on the plate.
Keycaps are ordinary, they are https://futurebetcasino.co.uk/ made of rough painted ABS plastic, 1.1mm. If the desire or need arises, they can be replaced with third-party ones. The engraving is done with high quality – the Latin alphabet is in the upper left part, and the Cyrillic alphabet and functional symbols are in the lower right. However, the chosen font seems very unfortunate to me. Because of it, it seems that when applying symbols, the laser calibration has gone wrong. This is especially noticeable on the letters “O”, both Latin and Cyrillic. They are not symmetrical, neither vertically nor horizontally. Perfectionists will be frustrated. But I repeat, the engraving is of high quality, the problem is in the chosen font.
The keyboard features Cherry MX Silent Red RGB mechanical switches with a lifespan of 50 million keystrokes. The key stroke is soft and pleasant, there are no clicks. According to the manufacturer’s specifications, the pressing force is 45 grams, the response threshold is 2mm., stroke – 4mm. The switch is transparent, the LED is located in the upper part, which is why the upper symbols on the keycaps are illuminated brighter.
The backlight is bright and customizable. Using the [Fn] key we can control the backlight and multimedia:
[Fn] + [PgUp]/[PgDn] – backlight brightness (10 levels + off)
[Fn] + [ScrLk] – change the effect (8 effects including wave, overflow, backlighting of individual keys, etc.d).
[Fn] + [Home]/[End] – effect animation speed.
[Fn] + [Ins] – change colors (8 colors, the rest through RGB Fusion software).
[Fn] + [Del] – turn off the backlight.
[Fn] + arrows – wave effect direction.
[Fn] + [F1]-[F3] – volume control.
[Fn] + [F5]-[F7] – music player control.
[Fn] + [F9]-[F11] – launch the player, browser, calculator.
The underside of the keyboard is plastic, decorated with the Aorus logo in the center. There are 4 diamond-textured rubber feet on the edges. At the upper end of the keyboard, along the edges, there are two metal regulators that allow you to individually change the height of the upper legs of the keyboard. The solution is original and interesting, although simple to implement.
Medium thickness cable, 1 length.8 meters (on the website it says 2 meters – they’re lying, I measured it), not removable, bends without problems and keeps its shape.
Ease of use
The keyboard is very pleasant to use, both for typing and gaming. The key travel is soft, with a slightly noticeable increase when pressed all the way. The absence of a click when pressed allows you to use the keyboard in the same room with a sleeping person without disturbing him. When printing quickly, the sound of hitting the plate appears, but it is also muffled. Stabilizers used on long keys are quiet, the sound of pressing Enter is quieter than the sound of pressing letters. But the spacebar rattles, but I won’t say it’s much louder. On the third day of using the keyboard, when typing text, I taught myself to press it without a swing, softly, which led to the fact that the sound from pressing it is practically absent. When playing games with friends, the microphone does not catch pressure unless you place it very close to the keyboard.
Anti-ghosting is available, and the N-Key Rollover (NKRO) functionality is also implemented – processing the simultaneous pressing of several keys. According to the manufacturer’s specifications, the keyboard supports up to 64 simultaneous keystrokes. During the period of using the keyboard, I did not notice any sticky keys or phantom presses.
Software
The Aorus application has, in my case, 2 tabs: VGA and Keyboard. In the first, we will get functionality similar to Afterburner, which we are not interested in in this review. If you have other Aorus devices (and even if you mess with other versions of the Aorus Engine), other tabs appear.
In the second tab we get the opportunity to reprogram the keys for other actions, be it a mouse click, text entry, pressing a key combination or a macro. And also save your profile. You cannot change the profile from the keyboard, and there is no possibility of automatic change when launching games or applications.
Setting up lighting and effects via software has a number of problems. There are 2 versions of the Aorus Engine available on the site and in both versions different lighting effects are available, and neither one nor the other has all 8 effects available through the on-the-fly control (via the [Fn] key). In the current version of the software for October, backlight settings are moved to a separate application – RGBFusion. There are only 3 effects available in it, but at least the application does not freeze on startup, like the previous version. Well, if you download the May version of Aorus Engine, without RGBFusion, you can get access to 6 effects with different settings. In addition, Aorus Engine in my case gives an error when turning off the PC and does not allow it to turn off. Mess in short.
I couldn’t find the option to set individual backlighting for individual keys, maybe I missed something or didn’t understand something. In any case, I really hope that the software will be completed in the future.
Conclusion
Aorus K7 – we can safely call it a not bad and balanced product. Perhaps the price will scare someone away, but for ~8 thousand rubles, the buyer receives a high-quality mechanical keyboard from a well-known brand with original Cherry switches, RGB backlighting and the ability to configure macros. The keyboard looks nice and, just as importantly, is quite comfortable to use. The absence of any critical shortcomings is also good news.
On the other hand, K7 is still a rare guest in federal retail. And if this is not critical for the capital, then in the regions it will be problematic to find it. What’s funny is that at the time of writing this review, in one well-known German online store the keyboard is more expensive than in the no less famous Moscow radio market, thanks to the jumping exchange rate.
In any case, the choice is yours, gentlemen.
Pros and cons
+ nice appearance
+ quality materials
+ the keyboard is not easily soiled
+ quiet switches
+ high-quality assembly
+ colorful lighting/effects
+ fine tilt adjustment
+ price
— backlight adjustment via software
– bad engraving font