Asus isn’t the first brand that comes to mind when it comes to keyboards. Asus has been in the gaming market for quite a while with the ROG brand and has been promoting some excellent products to the masses. Asus offered us the GK1100 RGB Mechanical Keyboard that comes with Cherry MX Blue switches to review. The keyboard comes at a price of RM699, although, you could pick one up for as low as RM559 at online retailers. The keyboard also comes with a steel plate under that keys that give a cool feel to the keyboard while typing. The keyboard is also RGB which means you could customize the color of the keys to whatever you please. But if you’re willing to fork out as much cash for the GK1100, is it worth it? Let’s find out!
01| The Unboxing Experience
Asus has been doing some packing for quite a while now, and the GK1100 doesn’t come with the most impressive unboxing experience, although, Asus was sure to include the necessities with the GK1100 (Back on that later).
Asus carried on their traditional packaging method with the GK1100 as well with the main cover touting the features of the GK100 on the front and back. On the side of the keyboard, Asus clearly denotes the type of Cherry MX keys that’s installed on the keyboard and towards the back, you could find quite a bit of more features that may be meaningful to many users.
Opening the box reveals the main course, the black box in which the GK1100 lies. Wrapped in plastic, Asus also included a few extra keys along with a key puller with the GK1100.
02| Design & Build Quality
The Asus GK1100 comes with a stealth black durable aluminum plate on the top of the keyboard. The GK1100 utilizes plastic concave shaped keys to top off the Cherry MX Blues underneath it. The keyboard is on the heavier side of the spectrum which is quite the norm in the mechanical keyboard market and weighs about 1080g according to Asus’s website.
The GK1100 also utilizes a durable braided USB cable to connect to your PC and cannot be detached from the keyboard itself.
Beneath the keyboard, you’ll find the Asus sticker accompanies by your keyboard’s S/N, some extra information, two rubber feet, 2 more rubber feet on the stands of the keyboard along with a wire route which neatly directs the wire either left, center or right depending on what you prefer.
During my usage, the cable route wasn’t favoring me thanks to the shallow cable route which doesn’t allow the cable to fully sink into the keyboard which is one of my biggest gripes with this keyboard
03| Typing Experience
Coming over to the typing experience of the GK1100, the keyboard feels like how you’d expect from Cherry MX Blue switches. Adding some more insight to the sound of the keyboard, the sound that the keys produced are quite deep compared to a frameless keyboard like the Armaggeddon MKA11R which I used as my daily driver until I got the GK1100. The sound difference is very minimal between the two.
As far as the lighting modes go, Asus has you fully covered…right? Well, while Asus did include quite a few lighting modes, I found myself missing the wave lighting effect that I have been accustomed to for quite a while. For lighting options, you could go static, pulse, star effect, spiral and laser, all of these modes feel unique compared to each another, although, adding a wave effect would be cool.
Talking about the software that Asus requires you to download for the GK1100, the software that they prepared for the GK1100 feels very underwhelming, to be frank. You could find all the necessities, although even using the software doesn’t feel worth downloading unless you really want to set up some macros.
04| Pricing & Conclusion
The Asus SAGARIS GK1100 is certainly a great keyboard thanks to the great build quality and Cherry MX Blues. The keyboard certainly has a few whistles off, simple font keycaps, review along with a higher than expected price tag which really needs some revising. For RM699, the SAGARIS GK1100 won’t be on our recommendation list unless the price is lowered. If you’re a die-hard fan of this aesthetic, sure, go for it. But I’d recommend Asus’s Strix lineup of mechanical keyboards any day for its price, lighting, macros and amazing functionality.