ASUS CERBERUS MECH RGB KEYBOARD

Mechanised and illuminated.

ASUS is looking to change the playing field with this entry-level mechanical RGB gaming keyboard promising great specs at a price that most of us can actually afford.

Lay your hands on this baby and you’ll immediately notice the rubberised plastic that covers every surface — this is a pleasure to touch but a smudge magnet. While the four included spare keycaps don’t get this rubber treatment, their orange-red colour ensures those W,S, A, D keys still stand out. The keyboard can lie flat or at a slight angle, but those who like a wrist rest should look elsewhere.

The overall aesthetic is minimalistic and tasteful, which is quite refreshing. The only strong assertion that this is a gaming ‘ board is the RGB backlighting, offering per-key colour configurations with seven effects that you can save to one of six profiles. You can also save any macros you record to those profiles, and easily switch between them by hitting Function plus F1 through F6. The ease of configuration is one of the Cerberus keyboard’s greatest strengths, with the ASUS Armory software making short work of setting up new profiles.

The switches are Kaihua branded and come in Red, Blue, Brown and Black — the Red switches we tested felt almost identical to their Cherry counterparts. While there are alternative gaming keyboards with heavier feature-sets, these always cost more (up to twice as much, in the case of the Razer Blackwidow 2 Chroma) and for some, the simplicity of the Cerberus will be a key selling point, rather than a drawback.