RK Royal Kludge

Royal Kludge was founded in 2014, with a full set of self-developed automated production line, focusing on the development and production of game equipment Equipped with domestic senior electronic research and development team and careful design for many years, Royal Kludge is a brand of research and development, production and sales. After years of careful research and development of professional mechanical keyboard, esports game mouse and headset and other product series have benn exported to Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia and other countries and regions. RK is determined to bring the concept of localized Chinese peripherals to foreign countries and build a global peripherals brand belonging to Chinese people.

Story of RK

The Full name of RK is Royal Kludge, its main products are mechanical keyboard around one hundred yuan. Although it is not high-end and design, the quality of work is relatively conscience. Mechanical Keyboard of 200-300 yuan is equipped with three mode, hot swap, a variety of color and PBT key cap. The cost performance is very good.

Currently, the most popular mechanical keyboard of RK is the RK98, although there is only one model, but there are a variety of configurations, covering the price of 250-450 yuan. The main difference is the switch body, key cap and connection. The first version of the top version uses TTC colorful red switch, which is the same mold as the golden red switch. The smoothness of the switch body is very good, which is basically the upper level of the market. And the three mode connection, customized theme PBT key cap, full key hot swap and other customized elements are not absent. The large key using the newly customized satellite switch, and the adjustment is good. The cost performance is quite excellent.

Royal Kludge K Series (K104Plus)

Guess how much it would cost to have a mechanical keyboard with 104 keys, wired/Bluetooth /2.4G three-mode, thickened PBT side engraved keycaps, white multimode fully backlit, and aluminum top? Not eight or nine hundred, not four or five hundred, just 299! You read that right, only 299 for high spec mechanical keyboard! So what keyboard is so good, with a full price and cheap configuration? Yes, the ROYAL KLUDGE K104Plus. ROYAL KLUDGE is a brand you should be familiar with, RK for short. It is a Chinese machinery brand focusing on cost performance and fashion design. It tends to be younger in style, and the detail elements are always at the forefront.

Today “three mode” gradually become a mechanical keyboard hot word in the background, RK also made this K104Plus. The wired mode is Type-C interface and key-line separation. Bluetooth can remember 5 sets of devices, support the combination of key fast switching; Compared to the previous dual model, the new 2.4G wireless mode has been upgraded to meet the need for low latency wireless connectivity, further enhancing the applicability. For the vast number of users who have the dual identity of social animal and player at the same time, it is indeed a very practical design to take into account office and game, which is also the starting point of RK’s own three-mode mechanical keyboard. So next, let’s take a look at K104Plus in detail.

Unpack

The K104Plus will initially include two colors: “Big Carbon” and “chalk.” The main color is chalk. This set of chalk color saturation is moderate. The color is bright, and the main key area is white. The big keys and function keys looks like chalk. In addition to bringing a sense of nostalgia in class, which is also very good.

Standard layout, unconventional narrow edge design. The upper shell uses aluminum alloy material, sand blasting painted. If you look at it carefully, you can see that it is not all aluminum alloy cover, but ABS material coated with a layer of aluminum alloy plate. Alloy thickness is about 1-2mm. It has to be said that this is a relatively smart design, compared with the all-aluminum top cover, this design saves a lot of costs, and at the same time it has more texture than the overall ABS. The frame and the four corners are circular shape, with delicate sand-blasted aluminum alloy surface. The appearance is still very good.

The position of the regular indicator is completely blank, and the indicator itself is integrated into the full-key backlight, so don’t worry that NumLock and have no indicator.

The key cap is thickened PBT material, radium carved side engraved characters, like the original factory height. The upper edge of the key cap has a slight arc. The bottom edge is sharp, the material is hard and dry. The internal reinforcement and the edge of the water mouth what are more regular, the color is also very positive, is a set of quite good key cap. The switch uses RK custom Gort tea switch, and the official nominal life is 6000 time. The steel plate is aluminum alloy plate, which is consistent with the appearance of the upper cover.

The two sides and the chassis are more rounded design, the joint of the upper and lower shell overall is god. The lower shell is made of ivory white bare plastic material with delicate skin texture on the surface. The feel is actually OK.The simple outline design and the round footpad looks like the quality is good.

Foot pad material is very tough, with a rubber sleeve of a section of foot support, anti-slip ability of a bar. Key cable separation, Type-C USB port cable, the interface is not reinforced connection design, but the four directions of space is left enough. The advantage is that it can maximize the compatibility of the third party cable. The special point on the details is that the gap between the opening of the K104Plus cover and the key cap is very narrow, and the matched key extractor can just reach into it. In addition to the most ordinary steel wire modeling, the key extractor of other brands including the third party can not be plugged. The main reason is to consider the aesthetic problem, the cover outer aluminum alloy material to be able to completely block the inner layer of plastic base.

Connectivity

Wired/Bluetooth /2.4G wireless “three modes”, support Windows/Mac OS/Android/iOS multiple operating systems. Hardware compatibility and software compatibility are excellent. Keyboard cable is automatically forced to enable and switch to the wired mode, which is also a good experience in daily use, save unnecessary operations; Bluetooth /2.4G is switched by two dials on the chassis.

Switch

The K104Plus is Gort blue/tea/black/red, with typing feel characteristics similar to the corresponding cherry switch. As for Gort tea, the position of the click is slightly higher than that of cherry tea. When pressing continuously, the sense of click will be weakened, and the sense of click will bounce back obviously. The big key is well adjusted, and there is no loose sense. There is just some spring sound, but does not affect the feel.

Summary

1, Stable 2.4G wireless connection, 5 sets of Bluetooth device switching, plug-in direct conversion to wired mode, excellent “three mode” experience;

2, aluminum alloy cover, chalk color thickened PBT side engraved key cap, 17 kinds of white backlight effect, appearance level is commendable;

3,The configuration is enough mid end user. The price is not expensive ,so the cost-effective is outstanding.

Royal Kludge RC Series (RC930)

The Royal Kludge RC930 is a bit of an exaggeration. First of all the layout version have both 87 and 104, plus with or without RGB backlight, not counting the differences of pressure and color. Of course, this is a dual version of 104, which is essentially no backlight and RGB backlight, with pressures of 45 and 55, respectively. Because the difference is really not too big, so this time I will not introduce them separately. Back to the keyboard itself, the more worldly or sharp-eyed can see that this electrostatic capacitance is actually the same source as Noppoo 108EC-Pro. What’s the story? Anyway, I can’t say it out loud, but I can only tell stories that are everywhere.

The Royal Kludge RC930’s RGB backlight is the world’s first mass-produced static full-backlight keyboard, which is also the first RGB backlight, if you don’t count your own DIY. In addition, structurally, the RGB lights it uses are SMD patches, which are located on the PCB and are the closest to Cherry MX RGB. This structure, coupled with the relatively white material of the electrostatic switch body, making the backlight effect quite good.

Design of the keyboard

Both are Royal Kludge RC930-104, the 104-key static keyboard. The difference between the two is in the keycap and the backlight, but nothing else, so let’s just take Royal Kludge RC930-104 RGB below. Although the Royal Kludge RC930 is a 104 keyboard in terms of design, it is different from the Noppoo 108EC-Pro, and black and white at first glance are not the same thing. But in fact, these two molds are the same dad, there is no difference. Although their essence is electrostatic capacity keyboard and from the same team, but with a slight upgrade, there is a better upgrade in the use experience. Back to the keyboard itself, the Royal Kludge RC930 has plenty of multimedia keys, and the two-color shaped keycap for backlighting is a bit of a character quirk. However, the odd thing is that there is only one M in the upper right corner, which is the custom status indicator, and that is different from the regular one.

Key cap

As for the keycaps, the Royal Kludge RC930 uses two sets of keycaps in both versions, differing in height and material. The ordinary version is POM material and Cherry height, the character is radium carving; While the RGB backlight version is ABS+PC material with OEM height, the keycap uses a two-color molding process. Let’s take a look at the RGB version of the keycap, which is dichroic. This key cap using two color molding process, the material is actually surface ABS, chrysanthemum transparent PC material. The touch of the workmanship is actually good,an the two color molding part is perfect.

As for the ordinary version of the POM key cap is not too much to say. Let’s take a closer look. It feels like basically consistent with Noppoo 108EC-Pro. Maybe it changed a little detail, but overall it is good for upper middle class keyboard. Note, of course, that the height of the POM keycap is Cherry. But this lamp cap is very violent. The cap at Scroll Lock is directly filed out of a hole, such a practice although direct violence, but really not as good as the cap. Or it’s the only way to do it without the pilot light and without the keycap.

Summary

Royal Kludge RC930 alone RGB lighting effect has been able to get attention of a lot of people. Not to mention the domestic electrostatic tolerance in this spot, the fusion of the two brings excitement that is quite a lot. Back to the feel, the Royal Kludge RC930, as a domestic electrostatic keyboard, which is more interesting in all aspects of the relative slight improvement, such as side press friction reduction, feel smoother. Of course, when it comes to RGB lighting, even if it’s not new, it’s still a big deal these days. The SMD patch used by the Royal Kludge RC930 is by far the most identical in structure to Cherry MX RGB, and is relatively transparent compared to the electrostatic switch, making the overall lighting effect quite good. The only shortcoming is that the lighting effects and customization of the place is not much, but it supports firmware upgrade. Maybe later it can be achieved