The Essence of Input

I will have to admit that “April” is a pretty boring month; April being the month you’re reading this issue of course, but it’s really March when we’re preparing for it. And that’s because all the major excitement happened during the Consumer Electronics Show - which I wrote about last issue - and Mobile World Congress in January and February respectively. In between that time, we also saw the launch of Samsung’s latest flagship, the Galaxy S24 series, among other announcements. After that, we had a brief little respite from the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations, before things are set to pick up again. It’s not like the whole tech industry has gotten down to a standstill, but maybe think of it as a breather from a packed first quarter. For example, NVIDIA held their GTC event touting ever more powerful AI chipsets. We do take a deep dive into Blackwell in this issue, but unless you’ve a vested interest in server and enterprise products, it’s probably going to just be a blip in your radar. And this I will wholeheartedly acknowledge. Not every big tech story is a story for everyone. So, in keeping with our usual HWM appeal, I’ve noticed that the trend of “proper” keyboards have been making inroads into the mass market consumer space. We’ve written about this topic in the past, both in HWM and on Hardwarezone.com. We even have a whole episode of our TechMeUp video series (available on YouTube) dedicated to this. However, it’s always been a niche pursuit for enthusiasts. Not anymore it seems. In this issue, we got to look at two sides of the keyboard coin with the gamer-centric ROG Falchion RX Low Profile and what I consider a statement piece, the Monokei Systems, which require you to make an appointment just to try the keyboard in person. What a world we live in.