The Asus ROG Azoth is a beast 75% keyboard. I’ve been using it for the past month for gaming, general PC use, and writing, and it’s proved to be one of the most tactile, comfortable and quiet keyboards I have used. All while not even taking up a full desk position.

Opening the box or looking at the side of the packaging can be daunting. Seeing a lube kit can seem daunting as Asus plays towards the hearts and minds of those wanting to customise and build a keyboard from scratch. As much as the ability to tinker and customise the ROG Azorth is part of the experience here, I barely engaged, and you wouldn’t need to either.

My keyboard came with the ROG NX Brown Mechanical Switch’s installed, the mid-point between the ultra-fast Red Switch’s and firmer Blue ones. They’re pre-lubed out of the box, and I’ve been thrilled with my Brown Switch’s. They’ve got a little more push than what the Red set would, but each cost the same, so if you’re looking for the advantage in games over everything else, purchasing the ROG NX Red Mechnical Switch’s with your ROG Azorth would make the most sense.

As someone who uses his keyboard for a mix of writing (things like this) as well as gaming, I needed the whole keyboard to be just as comfortable to use as a handful of keys you may use in a gaming scenario. The 75% keyboard, including things like the arrow keys, DEl, and PGUP keys, make a huge difference for someone like myself as well, over the 50% keyboards target just gaming. The silicone gaskets gave the ROG Azorth a lovely cushioned feeling to each keypress, making more extended gaming and writing sessions even better. All of the caps themselves are comfortable, and I haven’t had any wear on them after a month of use. They almost have a sheen-steen look and feel to them, and this particular keyboard nearly looks and feels like the least “gamer” out of the keyboards I’ve used in the past year. I’ll get to those fancy RGB and such features in a bit.

The extra attention put on the Shift, Enter, and, in particular, the Space Bar has made for a noticeable difference in use compared to other gaming and office-use keyboards. A pre-lubed stabiliser makes the spacebar feel very uniform and provides the same fantastic feeling of keypress no matter where you land with your thumb or fingers. Other keyboards tend to have the spacebar feel unbalanced, especially towards the sides, but I can’t fault the spacebar here, and I’ve tried slamming this spacebar to test it with a ridiculous amount of inputs per second while moving my finger up and down the entire keycap.

The set-up of the keyboard is straightforward, with the choice between 2.4GHz RF, wired USB and Bluetooth mode. Everything needed is included in the box to get the keyboard set up however you’d like, and then you simply flick the toggle on the top of the keyboard to the mode you want to use. This means you can connect up to three devices simultaneously and quickly switch between them. I didn’t test this as I don’t really have a use for the feature, but if I had space to set up my Macbook on my desk, it could be a handy feature to switch between working on PC and Mac at the same time.

One thing that may come as a surprise is the weight of the keyboard at 1186 grams, which, although it isn’t going to break your back, is definitely noticeably heavier than any keyboard I’ve recently used, especially considering it’s a 75% keyboard. There’s a trade-off with this, however, as the ROG Azorth has a premium feel thanks to the weight, and you shouldn’t be scared of accidentally swiping it off your desk and breaking it. But it also means there are better keyboards for portability. If you want a small gaming keyboard to pair with a laptop you travel with or bring to friends’ houses a lot, just beware; you could dent your laptop with this keyboard if you don’t pack your bag correctly.

As I said before, this is nearly a non-gamer-looking keyboard, and it’s nearly there between the weight and overlook of the thing–if it wasn’t for the RGB lights and the small OLED screen in the top right-hand corner. As always, the lighting is customisable, so you can have it as annoying and flashy as you feel fit, but the OLED screen has been both a considerable head-scratcher and a source of amusement.

When you first set up the ROG Azorth, the screen will default to looping an Asus logo GIF, and if you install the Armoury Crate software, you can change the gif to whatever you’d like it to be. Or get rid of it if you want, but know that including an OLED screen on this device is part of the hefty price tag. You can toggle through a handful of menus on this screen, including volume control, RGB settings for the keyboard itself, and skip forward and back in multimedia. It’s all perfectly fine; the switch feels slightly cheaper than the rest of the keyboard. The screen does show some quick information alongside the looping gif, including battery percentage and what mode it’s currently in to be connected to your device. The battery info is kinda helpful, but I’ve only charged this keyboard once since I got it, as it appears to have a fantastic battery life. Asus has stated it’ll go for 2,000 hours with the OLED screen and RGB turned off, which I’d believe as it lasts for easily half of that with those features on. The screen is just another visual flex and a way to make it yours if you’re willing to play with it, and I settled on a GIF of Detective Pikachu Returns from the most recent for some reason.

Jumping back to the Armoury Crate software quickly, it’s fine with a capital F. I don’t hate it, and I have become a little more accustomed to some ends of it, having become such a big ASUG ROG Ally user, but it is, at times, still really anti-consumer with how hard it is to find simple settings at times. If you wanted to, you could leave the software to uninstall, but again, you need it for the custom GIF placement.

There are some quirks here, like the AC Software and an OLED screen that are for memes rather than real use, but the ROG Azorth keyboard is rock solid and one of the best I’ve used. I love the feeling of the PBT keycaps and the weight and added premium sense to this keyboard. Including a lube station and instructions for lubing up your Switch’s is also great, even if not a central selling point.

(A review unit was supplied for the purposes of this article)