Review on 🔵 RK ROYAL KLUDGE RK61 Wireless 60% Mechanical Gaming Keyboard - Ultra-Compact 60-Key Bluetooth Keyboard with Programmable Software (Blue Switches, White) by Mike Maez

Today I am testing the Royal Kludge 61. This keyboard seems to have many advantages. $45 starting price, mechanical switches, lights and Bluetooth. Let's see how it will work in real conditions. First Impression: Things I noticed right away. First, it's much heavier and higher quality than I expected. Second, the LEDs are brighter than I expected. Third, the switches feel normal for a keyboard of this price. I'd say they're more tactile than the black alps on my Dell AT101W, but not as smooth as my IBM Model F. One thing I noticed but didn't like were the keycaps. They're really trying to promote the 'gamer' aesthetic. I want plain keycaps, black with a standard font. I also noticed that most of the caps weren't fully pressed against the switch stem. It wasn't hard to fix and only took a few seconds, but with the new keyboard it shouldn't be a problem. First input: I would say this is where the keyboard starts to fail. The first thing I noticed was that it wobbled when typing. This is unforgivable on a keyboard. The wobbling makes me feel less secure with every key press. I was able to fix this by placing eight sticky notes under one of the offending legs. Second, the design is terrible! If it could be reprogrammed it would be very useful as it is the standard ANSI format. Here are some things I initially get wrong. First, the Escape key is the primary key in the top-left corner. This makes accessing the ` and . To get to these keys, you need to press the function key, after which it behaves as intended. I'd rather press the function to escape. If we talk about function keys, then F1-10 are in a row. It is then interrupted by the LED brightness buttons. F11 and F12 are in the next row. I'm a mixture of confusion and frustration. First, why part with something that has the perfect amount of space to finish? Second, why did you place the LED control buttons in the row of functions? It really doesn't make any sense. Another big problem I see is the up arrow key / and ? Key. By default, this button is the up arrow. This makes typing questions a lot trickier as you now have to press 3 different buttons! This is an unforgivable mistake. Arrow keys should always take precedence over simple punctuation marks. Aside from the outrageous examples I've provided above, the rest of the layout is almost standard and easy to use. Design Thoughts: I've already discussed my dislike of keycaps, although this is personal. Things I would like to see that would not be too expensive to implement. Charge indicator LEDs! I would like to know when I need to charge the keyboard. Caps Lock does not light up when Caps Lock is not on, which is a good idea. It somehow distracts from the generally pleasant lighting. I like the idea of having higher edges on the case. Many keyboards in this price range don't have a body that extends to the bottom of the keycaps. Since this is a keyboard that people can carry around, I think protecting the switches was a smart move. Since the key layout is standard, getting new keycaps for it shouldn't be difficult. The space bar is even a standard size, which is often not the case on smaller keyboards. The keys have a standard profile, there are no problems with them. A few handles with the caps. First, they don't have much texture. It seemed to me that my fingers were slipping too much. However very helpful. The keycaps also have glossy black plastic on the sides. This makes them easy to pick up fingerprints and dirt. However, shiny plastic creates a cool glow effect. The top of the keycaps aren't glossy so I wouldn't count that against them, just understand that you might be cleaning your keyboard more than you anticipated. Switches: The keyboard comes with Jixian blue switches. They have a nice click and tactile effect. The pitch is much higher than my spring keyboard but much lighter. I would say they are smooth enough for general use. If you are an enthusiast you might not be completely satisfied with them but if you come from rubber domes you will be very happy. Compared to my Outemu browns, they are noticeably more tactile, to the point where my browns seem linear. It was very good. I could type on this keyboard without sinking to the floor, which I couldn't on my Outemu Browns. The swing in the switch is acceptable for the price range. None of the stabilized keys seem to bind or have off-center keystroke issues. Off-center keystrokes are no problem with these switches. I love this keyswitch for typing! It was very similar to my Cherry MX Blues in Das Keyboard. However, the clicking noise was higher and the switch wasn't as stable, but still very comfortable. I asked several family members, friends, and co-workers to test this keyboard and give their opinions. Some used mechanical keyboards, some didn't. Overall they liked it and said it was beautiful and sounded good. Bluetooth: Setting up Bluetooth for the first time was excruciating. The directions didn't seem to help. When I contacted the seller they said to press FN + Tab to switch to bluetooth mode. It would be nice to see this in the instructions. After that, pairing became a lot easier, but it still took a few tries to get it right. I paired it with my Samsung S8+ for the first time and it was a nightmare. It seemed to be sending functional layers instead of actual letters. This made it unusable. Pairing with my Surface Pro 4 was like a wired connection. Summary: For $45, I think this keyboard is an interesting option. do a lot of things right. The chassis feels solid, the switches sound and feel good, and Bluetooth is a big plus. However, the key layout is the worst I've ever used. I find it absurd that anyone would think I should use the function key in addition to my shift key to type a question mark! If they changed that or allowed end users to remap the keyboard, I wouldn't have much to complain about. A few little things I have to say about this are the use of glossy plastic on the sides of the keycaps and how the manual should be rewritten to better explain the Bluetooth pairing process. In the end I would recommend this keyboard if and only if they change the keyboard layout. It was the part of the keyboard that I couldn't stand.