RK ROYAL KLUDGE RK96 Mechanical Keyboard
This RK ROYAL KLUDGE RK96 Mechanical Keyboard is an excellent keyboard with fantastic initial quality, except for one issue I’ll describe later. I also have a Royal Kludge RK61 that I can compare against. The first impression is that this keyboard is way heavier than expected. I’d attribute that to the very large battery. The LED lighting is a nice feature. The pale light blue is pleasant, and there are loads of lighting modes to choose from. My favourite is the reactive mode, where the lights react to each key press. However, I could see that becoming distracting very quickly.
The keys all move very nicely, and I don’t notice a significant difference in the feel of each of the keys. I got the board with the brown switches, which feels just right. The keys have a fairly uniform feel. The bump of the brown-style key is present, though I don’t notice it all that much when actively typing. The sound of each keypress is pleasant, though if you hit some of the keys hard enough, there’s a bit of a ping sound on the release, especially on keys near where the letters meet the number pad. Compared to my RK61, it feels a bit more solid. I’m not able to fully compare the sound as my RK61 has the blue switches (also nice, but not suited for office work). The keycaps are a bit more glossy on this keyboard than the grainy texture felt on the RK61.
RK ROYAL KLUDGE RK96 Mechanical Keyboard Review
Bluetooth on this keyboard works nicely. It’s fairly easy to connect to my device without a lot of hassle. I’ve yet to test the other connection methods, but I’m glad they are available. The hotkeys all appear to work correctly. I like the volume control, which is far easier to access than the RK61. The battery indicator from the hotkeys is a very nice touch, and it appears to move in 10% increments.
From how I sit in front of the keyboard, the indicator lights for Numlock, Capslock, etc are blocked by the keys in front of them. I would have to lean over the keyboard to be able to see those lights. It’s odd, but I don’t need to look at that often enough to be a big issue.
A bigger problem was that the enter key next to the number pad appeared to be inserted incorrectly. When I attempted to pull the key cap using the supplied tool, the switch came with it. The pins under the switch were a bit bent. After adjusting the pins and re-inserting the switch and keycap, it appears to work just fine. This is something that should have been corrected in quality control in the factory. For this issue, I took a star off the rating.
Not really a downside, since this keyboard is specifically downsized, but I wish RK made a full-size Bluetooth keyboard. There are surprisingly few options out there for that criteria.
Overall, the RK ROYAL KLUDGE RK96 Mechanical Keyboard is a fantastic option for those looking for a slightly smaller keyboard.
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