I really wanted to love the Rosewill RK-9100 Illuminated Mechanical Gaming Keyboard, I really did. It's clicky, gorgeous, and tanklike, but every one of its qualities is marred by major flaws. I wrote a mediocre review before but the problems I notice just before I ship this well-meaning-but-constantly-doing-the-wrong-thing-anyway antihero of a keyboard back to Newegg I decided to rewrite my thoughts before publishing this first internet review. Here we go!
The Rosewill RK-9100 is a new mechanical keyboard with backlit keys available on Newegg.com. Right now the only available option is blue backlighting with Cherry MX Blue switches— I'll get to those in the next paragraph— and, with the guiding force of a 20% off sale, I snapped it up.
Mechanical switches are the new old big thing for anyone who loves typing. I discovered them about two months ago and have been searching for my own board ever since. There are a lot of switches, and OverClock.net has a guide, but in short the Cherry MX Blue switches are the current gold standard for typing (though Reds are better for gaming, just read the guide). Since all I do is type, type, type no matter what the Cherry MX Blue switches were perfect for me.
Out of the box, the first thing I noticed was how pingy this keyboard is. That's the best I can describe it as: echoey pinging on every keypress. In this video you can hear the constant ring after every keypress. This thing shrieks: "Tcha-king! Tcha-king!" This is easily a deal-breaker for those who are anal about key noise (aka me), but keep reading: it gets better worse.
Note: The echoes fade into the melody of the keyboard but are still noticeable. If you hate pinging, you will hate this keyboard.
The keys also have a tinnier, clickier sound to them than the deep chuckle of my old AT101W. If keyboards were people, the Rosewill would be the castrated tenor to AT101W 's bass. It took buying a Cherry keyboard to realize that the sound demos all over YouTube, which I thought left out some of the switch's throatiness, are accurate. This keyboard lives on helium or something.
Even after knowing that the keys are uneven (I'll get to that later), this thing is purty. I mean puberty-inducing gorgeous. The press images of the green "Lock" lights and the perfect blue backlight do not do this thing justice. This keyboard is one of the prettiest things in my room— and it smells like new plastic! The keycap font is beautiful, every icon is perfectly shaped: it just reeks classiness. Rosewill's logo is for the first time unobtrusive and looks fitting— also metallic, very metallic. I'd probably mount this thing over my fireplace.
The backlight is somewhat uneven, though, illuminating only the upper line of keys with more than one line (eg the number and slash keys)— a perennial problem of mechanical switch keyboards due to giant physical switchs stuck between LEDs and special charcters.
It does a damn fine job illuminating everything else, even on the lowest brightness level, while the highest brightness level (of which there are four) gives the keys a soothing (yes, soothing. I LIKE BLUE A LOT) blue glow. I've heard of backlit mechanicals having reflective undercoatings to more evenly distribute light but from what I've seen this is the typical state of most mechanical backlit keyboards.
###Lowest Brightness###
###Highest Brightness###
There are four backlight modes: off, WASD+Arrows, tenkeyless, and full. These are pretty standard modes but the WASD+Arrows mode— "Gamer Mode"— disables the Windows and Context Menu keys, god knows why the Menu key exists, which is a pretty dandy feature if you like to game on Windows. It figures that I'm trying to switch from WASD to ESDF so the unchangeably lit WASD keys are the ones I'm trying to move away from, but it is what it is. Interestingly enough, the brightness may be adjusted even when toggled off. Brightness and mode are not saved when unplugged.
Without the backlight, the lettering looks brown, as if they were keys lasered white that picked up finger grease. That's a negative image, so let me qualify that by saying this keyboard looks like game time with backlight and like a confident professional without. The keys (and especially the letters) have a surface that is vaguely reminiscent of watercolor paper. Were I to keep it, I would have trouble deciding whether or not to leave the backlight on: it's that nice.
Now everything is great, right, but everything comes with a major "but." I mean major "but" so major I am bolding this: The keys are not lasered uniformly. Look at the pictures below and notice the height of the numbers. This is probably due to the way the keys are printed— the keys are actually translucent plastic dipped in black paint that is then lasered after being mounted on the board. The keys were probably placed unevenly on the board before lasering and bad quality control probably missed it. I could still feel paint residue on the keys from the lasering process when I got the keyboard.
The Rosewill is by far the most solid keyboard I've ever used. Weight-wise it is the same as my giant AT101W but grip-wise it is a friggin' boulder. It. Does. Not. Move. The AT101 seems like a coward retreating from the whir of my typing (85wpm on average, so I guess it has a right) compared to this keyboard. Where does this keyboard let me down? The bottom plastic cover feels hollow. It's such a sharp contrast that I've included this video demonstrating its thin plastic flimsiness. Other than that this keyboard glows with the rigidity of proud family money.
The switches also feel a lot heavier than what I'm used to. My typing speed has decreased by at least 5 wpm— although my accuracy has gone up 5%— after doing a couple of tests on Typeracer. I'm sure it will improve, though, it just takes getting used to.
The keys have a grippy, chalky texture. I didn't get to use this keyboard long enough to tell if it was due to lasered paint residue, but I feel like a rock climber with this thing. Rock climbing is good, though, and my fingers don't slip as much as on my AT101W. The bottom of the keyboard is also chalky, dusty, and it feels like the chalk (paint?) adheres to my fingers. I noticed some substance that rubbed off with my finger on the sides of the Windows key and spacebar.
The cable is permanently attached to the board which seems like a nice touch judging by fan-hate for the flimsy removable connector on the RK-9000 and is braided, which makes me feel cared about just a little more. It has a ferrite bead near the first USB connector (of which there are two, kiddo, but the second one is only used for backlight) and the cable is velcroed nicely. Nice. There is a USB 2.0 hub with two ports powered by the first cable (although don't quote me about USB power— I just tested input by plugging in my mouse) at the back of the keyboard.
Someone at whatever OEM Rosewill likes decided to put the Fn key in the middle of nowhere on the right side of the keyboard. Therefore changing backlit modes or levels requires me to move my left hand and hold the button. I guess it makes sense since the priority is usually the media keys, but for those who don't stream music day-in-day-out, be aware.
The RK also has well-designed props that allow minute variations in keyboard angle. Very nice.
On a side note, though, F1 and F2 have Fn functions Home and Email respectively. I thought you were cool, Rosewill. It is better than the Ducky Shine's four bothersome keys at the top right of the board, but manufacturers: Nobody uses those keys! Nobody!
God, Rosewill RK-9100, I thought we were friends. I thought you were cool. I thought you had quality control, but you don't. Even with your weird pinging I would have recommended this to my friends and to my strangers on the internet (I would have bought o-rings for you. O-rings!) but with your uneven lasering I just can't stay with you.
- Mechanical
- Well-Implemented Backlight (for the price point)
- Gorgeous
- Tank-like
- Pingy
- Oh my god, pingy.
- Numbers are not aligned
- Neither are letters, for that matter
- Flimsy back panel
Even the die-hard 'poor' college kids need not buy this keyboard with their last �Benjamin. Its incredibly annoying pinging (-2pts) and god-awful lasering (-2pts)— both of which could have been solved with better quality control— destroy any benefits of its beauty or excellent feel. Nitpicks like uneven illumination and lack of customizable backlighting lose it some more (-1pt): abandon hope all ye who enter here and don't buy this keyboard.
5/10