of best gaming keyboard A difficult order, but you may have found it. And it’s only been 1 month!
We knew the Asus ROG Azoth keyboard was going to be great when we first saw it at CES 2023. Best in Show AwardBut… damn it. The Azoth not only looks great, but has a monochromatic black and gray aesthetic that’s surprisingly sleek against Asus’s usually aggressive, gamer-oriented, angry red-eye branding of his ROG line, making it a great addition to the sound and Excellent feel. wonderfulIt’s like a high-end enthusiast custom keyboard kit boarding a vendor and hooked on Fortnite, and I’m absolutely here.
It’s not cheap, of course — the ROG Azoth is available now for $250 — but it’s one of them. best gaming keyboard can get.
ROG Azoth Design and Manufacturing
ROG Azoth is a wireless, gasket-mounted mechanical keyboard with a 75% form factor. It’s smaller than the TKL (Tenkeyless, or 87%) layout, with only four navigation keys per row instead of the standard 3×3. This layout allows the Azoth to have a smaller footprint — the keyboard is only 12.83 inches (326mm) long, more than an inch shorter than the SteelSeries Apex Pro TKL’s 14-inch length — 60% Or 65% keyboard.
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ROG Azoth may be small, but it’s built like a beast. Underneath the dual-tone Doubleshot PBT keycaps lies a heavy metal top plate in a sleek gunmetal gray. Beneath the top plate, the Azoth’s chassis is made of plastic, which Asus says is necessary for the keyboard to maintain peak levels of wireless performance.
However, it’s a very sturdy plastic chassis that doesn’t compromise the keyboard’s build quality at all.Weighing in at 2.61 pounds (1186g), the Azoth is heavy and solid overall. The back of the board has two sets of flip-out feet for added height.
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A 2-inch animated grayscale OLED screen occupies the upper right corner of the keyboard. Next to the screen is a three-way control knob and button combination that can be used to fine-tune a number of onboard settings (brightness, lighting effects, etc.) as well as control multimedia. The screen can display keyboard information (such as battery life), system parameters, custom visuals and animations that can be set using Asus’ peripheral software Armory Crate, and much more.
Behind Azoth is a keyboard connection control. A power switch to toggle between 2.4GHz wireless and Bluetooth, a 2.4GHz wireless dongle connected to the storage port, and a USB-C port for charging and wired connectivity. .
The keyboard comes with a whole box of accessories. These include a 6.5ft (2m) braided USB-C to USB-A cable, a USB extender, a keycap puller, a switch puller, and a DIY switch lube kit. Lubricant kit includes lubricant (Krytox GPL205-GD0), switch opener, lube station, brushes and some extra switches. (Don’t worry, Asus also includes a QR code that links to a video tutorial on how to use the lube kit.) The accessory kit consists of items that are particularly expensive or hard to come by. Not really, but very good. A nice touch—especially for a premium and mainstream gaming keyboard.
specification
| switch | ROG NX Red |
| lighting | RGB per key |
| Onboard storage | Yes; up to 6 profiles |
| media key | OLED screen with control knobs/buttons |
| game mode | yes |
| connectivity | 2.4GHz wireless, Bluetooth, wired (USB-C) |
| additional port | none |
| key cap | Doubleshot PBT |
| construction | Metal top plate, plastic chassis |
| software | armory crate |
| Dimensions (LxWxH) | 12.83 x 5.35 x 1.57 inch / 326 x 136 x 40mm |
| weight | 2.61lbs / 1186g |
| Manufacturer’s suggested retail price | $250.00 |
Typing and Gaming Experience with ROG Azoth
ROG Azoth uses a gasket mount design. A silicone gasket cushions his PCB, and three layers of dampening foam and silicone absorb echoes and case pings, resulting in a great-sounding keyboard, especially on mainstream gaming keyboards. Mainstream premiums like Razer’s Huntsman V2 and SteelSeries’ Apex Pro TKL I’m not saying his gaming keyboards sound terrible, but Azoth is on another level.
Even my husband commented on how Azoth sounds. All he said was “Good” and “He sounds better than what he was using before”, which is a pretty high rating. He usually says “Did you get anything aftermarket? Keyboard mods equivalent to muffler removal” or “This to a neighbor who asked if ‘writer’ was a euphemism for ‘unemployed’.” Auditory revenge?
Typing in Azoth also feels next level. The gasket-mounted design offers plenty of flexibility for comfort, but not too much. Our review model comes with Asus’ ROG NX Red (Linear) switches. , featuring straight and smooth keypresses with no tactile bumps or audible clicks (Azoth is also available in NX Brown (Tactile) or NX Blue (Click) switches.
NX Reds have a 40g actuation force and 1.8mm actuation point, making them slightly lighter and shorter than the popular Cherry MX Red linear switches (45g actuation force, 2mm actuation point). The NX Reds were a little too light and hollow for me, so I replaced them with clicky Kailh Box White switches using the keycap puller and switch remover that came with my Asus.
Typing in Azoth stood out when I swapped out the switches. All my keystrokes felt consistently measured, with just the right amount of flex without being too bouncing. I was particularly impressed with the shift and enter keys, which have “tuned” pre-lubricated ROG-branded stabilizers.
The Azoth keycaps are matte black, the primary legend is Shine Through, and the secondary legend is printed. The keycaps are medium height, described by Asus as “similar to Cherry profile keycaps”, and have curved, lightly textured tops. It’s made of Doubleshot PBT, but it’s a little slippery. I haven’t had any issues with finger slippage or accuracy, but if you sweat a lot, I recommend swapping out for better keycaps.
But don’t let Azoth’s enthusiast-level typing experience fool you. Its specs are in line with other top-of-the-line wireless gaming keyboards. Skip macro recording.
Azoth is responsive and reliable while gaming, whether connected to your PC or wirelessly. I got too sick to focus on work, but I was able to play a backlog of like 23 impromptu Steam sale games. Overall connection latency.
ROG Azoth features and software
Azoth has some preset secondary keybindings (Fn shortcuts) printed on the south-facing side of the keycap. These include profile switching, macro recording, and lighting modes/brightness. Combined with Azoth’s OLED screen, these shortcuts allow you to perform quite a few actions directly from your keyboard without the need to install any software. However, if you want to do things like keybinds, lighting modes, customize the OLED screen, and more, you’ll need to install Asus’ peripheral software, the Armory Crate.
I hate Armory Crates. I can honestly say that I have never had a good experience with an Armory Crate. This is such a bloated and complicated disaster of a program that I don’t even like installing it on my PC unless absolutely necessary. I held out as long as I could before installing this time, but soon ran into a surprising barrage of problems (namely, Azoth kept prompting me to update its firmware and crashed when I tried to read the current version). .)
After a lot of tedious troubleshooting, including several reboots, three clean installs, and switching computers after unplugging all peripherals a few times, Armory Crate gave me a good idea of the firmware situation. I was able to figure it out. Azoth setting.
Almost all of Azoth’s keys (except the Fn key) are programmable, but only on the first layer, which is a bit disappointing. There doesn’t seem to be a way to program secondary keybindings (such as Fn key shortcuts). This seems like a pretty big oversight considering the 75% size of the keyboard (not small, but on the small side). This is something that could possibly be fixed by a firmware update (assuming the Armory Crate is able to deliver the above update without crashing).
You can also use the Armory Crate to set up control knobs and customize Azoth’s OLED screen. A control knob can be set to cycle through his six-function list of system volume, media tracks, keyboard brightness, OLED brightness, lighting effects toggle, and programmable custom options.
As for the OLED screen, it can be customized to display images/animations (preset or custom), custom text banners, media information (or audio visualizer), or date/time/system information. I uploaded the first animation I found on my PC. This was this Pop Cat GIF.
ROG Azoth Wireless Experience and Battery Life
ROG Azoth has three forms of connectivity: 2.4 GHz wireless, Bluetooth, and wired (USB-C). According to Asus, the keyboard he can get up to 2,000 hours of battery life with a 2.4 GHz wireless connection. Of course, with the OLED screen and lights turned off.
I’ve been using the Azoth for about 15 hours since the last full charge and still have nearly 70% battery left according to Armory Crate. This one uses his RGB lighting at 75% of his brightness, with a GIF constantly playing of the cat opening her mouth three times hers in one second.
Conclusion
Asus ROG Azoth is not cheap. Its retail price of $250 puts it at the top of the gaming keyboard market alongside similarly sized flagships such as the Logitech G915 TKL Wireless and SteelSeries Apex Pro TKL Wireless. But in addition to its low-latency wireless gaming capabilities and blazingly long battery life (even with all its features maxed out), Azoth offers gamers hot-swappable switches, an exceptional typing experience, and an enthusiast’s favorite. provide flavor. , and numerous accessories to fine-tune the sound and feel.
A wireless gaming keyboard with gamer-friendly features like on-the-fly macro recording that will satisfy your inner typing enthusiast is surprisingly hard to find. And Asus not only pulls it off with the Azoth, it knocks it out of the park. Azoth is great hardware. Unfortunately, Asus isn’t keen on refreshing its software.
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