Asus ROG Falcata review: steep but not steep enough

Hall effect gaming keyboards are not uncommon. But Asus’s ROG Falcata is the only keyboard with a split ergonomic keyboard, which aims to reduce wrist, hand or arm pain. To have the luxury of getting all this, you’ll have to pay $419.99, which is enough to buy a good Hall Effect keyboard And A divided ergonomic.

It would be worth it if Falcata truly represented the best of both worlds, but I’m divided. As a Hall Effect board, it succeeds by offering a range of customization options, including the ability to let you adjust the actuation point of each key up to hundredths of a millimeter at a time. But if you’re buying it for the ergonomics like me, probably not. My biggest concern during testing was its limited tenting angles. $420 seems like a lot for a keyboard that… doesn’t get much else.

The tenting split is an integral feature of the Ergo keyboard. Being able to raise the inner sides of each of the two sections to your liking allows your arms and wrists to rest in a more neutral position than a regular keyboard. The Falcata can only tent up to seven degrees (or six degrees when the wrist rest is installed). Some people may only need the modest tenting provided by the Falcata; I’m accustomed to a 15-degree tent on my Kinesis Freestyle Edge RGB, while some prefer even more.

You can’t know what feels right until you’ve used a tented keyboard, but at this price, Asus should have included more tented options – and a longer USB-C link cable, too. The parts can only be separated by a maximum of 10 inches, which doesn’t let me stretch my arms as far as I’d like to feel relieved (the Freestyle’s non-detachable cable can go up to 14 inches). Sure, I could use my own longer cable with the Falcata, but at $420, that’s a mistake.

The Falcata’s inadequate tenting aside, it has everything my daily driver doesn’t. It has the same 75-percent key layout (except for the Freestyle’s left-hand macro key column), so there was no learning curve. Yet its design is far prettier and more compact on my desk. The halves can fit together like a standard keyboard, which is convenient if you need to travel with it. Furthermore, it is so Quiet to type on (to be fair, most switches are quieter than the Cherry MX Blues, my reference).

Falcata is packed with gamer-oriented features. It gives you the option to turn on Rapid Trigger and Speed ​​Tap (Asus’ branded name for simultaneous opposing cardinal directions, or SOCD), which are controversial features designed to give players an advantage in competitive games. Additionally, it can operate wired or via Bluetooth or 2.4GHz wireless (in wireless mode, its two halves are still connected together via USB-C), with a polling rate of up to 8,000Hz available in all modes except Bluetooth.

Besides being quiet, the advantage of its Hall effect switches is that they are analog, not limited to the binary on/off state of a digital sensor. You can customize the distance at which each key registers an input (and a reset), which can mean lightning-fast commands for gamers with almost no physical movement. These are a little difficult to use with typing, at least with the default settings. I accidentally typed “ffffffffffffffffffffffff” or “jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj” in several text boxes because my fingers were putting a little too much weight on the home keys. Falcata offers several ways to adjust and customize their sensitivity whole And many more. One route is to use Gear Link, Asus’ browser-based app. In my case, changing the dead zones for each key helped eliminate misfires. You can also adjust these settings via the keyboard’s multi-purpose scroll wheel. It’s intended to be fast, and for some it may be, but it just feels more cumbersome than using the web app.

Every key on Falcata can serve as a macro if you want. While I’m more accustomed to dedicated macro keys on my Kinesis, the Gear Link makes it easy to assign additional functions to any key. In the app, you can assign simple functions to make life easier, like pressing a key also triggers a left mouse click. Since this is a Hall Effect board, it also has Dynamic Keystrokes, which lets you assign four unique commands based on the travel distance of the keys. For example, you can program W (to sprint forward in the game) to send W with only a light press, and also trigger Shift and R with a full press, allowing you to sprint and reload any time you press it fully. This level of customization is standard for Hall Effect gaming keyboards, but this is the first time it’s available in a split ergonomic keyboard.

Coming back to Rapid Trigger and Speed ​​Tap: they’re built to help you do things in games that aren’t otherwise possible, either due to reflex speed or limitations of the keyboard hardware. Rapid Trigger, which is off by default and is activated by flipping a switch near its multifunction dial, allows key activation to be reset immediately upon release, so even if you haven’t completed the full keystroke speed, the sensor can be primed to receive another input faster than the physical switch on your opponent’s keyboard.

Speed ​​Tap (also off by default) lets you continue moving when you press two opposite cardinal directional keys (for example, A and D). For example, pressing A to go left and then D to go right would normally make your character stop until you release one of them (reflecting reality – you can’t move in two directions at once), but Speed ​​Tap gives priority to your last input, overriding any other keys that might still be pressed. Valve considers this feature to be similar to automatic assist, and therefore does not allow its use. counter attack 2Still, it’s nice to participate in games where you won’t risk getting banned,

To understand falcata, you really need both Hall effects. And A Split Ergo Keyboard. As an ergonomic board, this is definitely “try before you buy”; Its limited tenting capabilities may be fine, or you may quickly realize that it’s just not going to cut it. Unfortunately, you may not be able to try it Until You buy it because your local Best Buy may not have a model on display. If you decide to get out of that circle, make sure you can get a refund if necessary.

If you don’t mind losing the advanced features of a Hall Effect board, the Kinesis Freestyle Edge RGB Plus is a great split ergo board that costs less than half the price. It offers hot-swap mechanical switches (it comes with either linear or tactile, but is compatible with thousands of different switch types), and with a lift kit that lets it tilt up to 15 degrees. Yes, it’s heavy and wired only, it has loud switches (depending on what you have), and it doesn’t have Hall Effect switches. But it’s a very good keyboard, and it’s even better ergonomically.

Photography by Cameron Faulkner/The Verge