Asus ROG Falcata evaluate: steep however not steep sufficient

Hall impact gaming keyboards aren’t unusual. But Asus’ ROG Falcata is the one one which’s additionally a cut up ergonomic keyboard, aimed toward assuaging wrist, hand, or arm ache. For the luxurious of getting all of it, you’ll pay $419.99, sufficient to purchase a pleasant Hall impact keyboard and a cut up ergonomic one.

It’d be price it if the Falcata really represented the very best of each worlds, however I’m cut up. As a Hall impact board, it succeeds, providing a wealth of customization choices, together with the power to allow you to alter every key’s actuation level by as little as a hundredth of a millimeter at a time. But when you’re shopping for it for ergonomics, like me, then possibly not. My greatest concern throughout testing was its restricted tenting angles. $420 appears very steep for a keyboard that doesn’t… get very steep.

Tenting is an integral characteristic of cut up ergo keyboards. Being in a position to increase the interior sides of every of the 2 sections to your liking permits your arms and wrists to relaxation in a extra impartial place than they might on an everyday keyboard. The Falcata can solely tent as much as seven levels (or six with the wrist rests put in). Some individuals might solely want the slight tenting that the Falcata provides; I’m used to a 15-degree tent on my Kinesis Freestyle Edge RGB, whereas some choose even increased.

You might not know what feels proper till you employ a tented keyboard, however at this value, Asus ought to have included extra tenting choices — and longer USB-C hyperlink cables, too. The halves can solely be separated by a most of 10 inches, which doesn’t let me unfold my arms as a lot as I have to really feel reduction (the Freestyle’s non-detachable cable can go as much as 14 inches). Sure, I can use my very own longer cable with the Falcata, however at $420, that is an oversight.

The Falcata’s inadequate tenting apart, it’s the whole lot that my every day driver isn’t. It has the identical 75-percent key format (minus the Freestyle’s left-hand macro key columns), so there was no studying curve. Yet its design is each much more elegant and extra compact on my desk. The halves can match collectively like an ordinary keyboard, which is handy if it’s worthwhile to journey with it. Also, it’s so quiet to sort on (to be honest, most switches are quieter than Cherry MX Blues, my level of reference).

The Falcata is overflowing with gamer-oriented options. It offers you the choice to activate fast set off and Speed Tap (Asus’ branded title for simultaneous opposing cardinal instructions, or SOCD), controversial options designed to offer gamers the benefit in aggressive video games. Additionally, it may function wired or through Bluetooth or 2.4GHz wi-fi (in wi-fi mode, its two halves are nonetheless linked collectively through USB-C), with as much as an 8,000Hz polling fee accessible in all modes besides Bluetooth.

The perks of its Hall impact switches, aside from being quiet, is that they’re analog, not restricted to the binary on/off states of digital sensors. You can customise the space at which every key registers an enter (and a reset), which for avid gamers can imply lightning-fast instructions with nearly no bodily motion. They’re a bit trickier to make use of with typing, no less than with default settings. I by accident typed “fffffffffffffffffffffffff” or “jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj” in lots of textual content bins simply because my fingers have been placing a little bit an excessive amount of weight on the house keys. The Falcata provides a number of methods to regulate their sensitivity, and to customise a entire lot extra. One route is to make use of Gear Link, Asus’ browser-based app. In my case, tweaking the useless zones for every key helped to eradicate misfires. You may even alter these settings through the keyboard’s multipurpose scroll wheel. It’s meant to be sooner, and to some it may be, but it surely felt extra cumbersome than simply utilizing the online app.

Each of the Falcata’s keys can function a macro, in order for you. While I’m extra accustomed to the devoted macro keys on my Kinesis, Gear Link makes it a breeze to assign further capabilities to any key. In the app, you possibly can assign easy capabilities to make life simpler, like pushing a key additionally triggering a left mouse click on. Since it’s a Hall impact board, there’s additionally Dynamic Keystroke, which helps you to assign as much as 4 distinctive instructions relying on the important thing’s journey distance. For occasion, you possibly can program W (working ahead in video games) to only ship W with a lightweight press, and in addition set off Shift and R with a full press, letting you dash and reload any time you press all of it the way in which. This degree of customization is customary for Hall impact gaming keyboards, however that is the primary time it’s accessible in a cut up ergonomic keyboard.

Coming again to fast set off and Speed Tap: They’re constructed that will help you do issues in video games which are in any other case not potential, both as a result of limitations of reflex velocity or keyboard {hardware}. Rapid set off, which is off by default and activated by flipping a swap close to its multipurpose dial, permits key actuation to reset instantly upon launch, even when you haven’t accomplished a full keystroke movement, readying the sensor to obtain one other enter sooner than the bodily switches in your opponent’s keyboard may have the ability to.

Speed Tap (additionally off by default) permits you to proceed transferring when two opposing cardinal directional keys (e.g., A and D) are pressed. For instance, urgent A to maneuver left after which urgent D to maneuver proper would usually make your character cease till you launch considered one of them (reflecting actuality — you possibly can’t stroll in two instructions without delay), however Speed Tap prioritizes your final enter, overriding every other key which may nonetheless be pressed down. Valve considers the characteristic to be tantamount to an computerized help, and due to this fact doesn’t enable its use in Counter-Strike 2. Still, it’s cool to have in video games the place you gained’t danger getting banned.

For the Falcata to make sense, it’s important to actually need each Hall impact and a cut up ergo keyboard. As an ergonomic board, it’s undoubtedly a “try before you buy”; its restricted tenting skills may very well be fantastic, or chances are you’ll notice instantly that it’s not going to chop it. Unfortunately, chances are you’ll not have the ability to attempt it till you purchase it, as your native Best Buy might not have a mannequin on show. If you determine to leap by way of that hoop, be sure you can get a refund if wanted.

If you don’t thoughts lacking out on the superior options of a Hall impact board, the Kinesis Freestyle Edge RGB Plus is a superb cut up ergo board that’s lower than half the worth. It provides hot-swap mechanical switches (it comes with both linear or tactile, however is appropriate with 1000’s of various swap varieties), and with the Lift Kit that lets it tent at as much as 15 levels. Yes, it’s bulkier and wired solely, with louder switches (relying on those you get), and it doesn’t have Hall impact switches. But it’s an excellent keyboard, and it’s higher ergonomically, too.

Photography by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge