The Asus ROG Azoth combines mainstream features and enthusiast quality for a reasonable price.
I never thought I would prefer an off-the-shelf gaming keyboard over the custom mechanical keyboard I built last year. But here we are.
When Asus announced its ROG Azoth, I knew immediately it was one of my most anticipated products of the year. Based on the spec sheet, it’s a piece of kit that sits among the best gaming keyboards you can buy. I didn’t expect it to be better than a custom, enthusiast-grade mechanical keyboard, though, and it is. Still, there are a couple of minors areas I’d like to see Asus improve with a version two.
The look of the ROG Azoth is immediately recognizable to anyone in the world of enthusiast mechanical keyboards. It’s a 75% design, following in the footsteps of the Glorious GMMK Pro and Drop Sense75. There are some critical changes, though.
The top is an aluminum frame, but there isn’t aluminum all around the body like the GMMK Pro or Sense75. The Azoth is a hefty keyboard, but it’s not nearly as heavy as these other enthusiast models due to its plastic bottom.
There’s a good reason for plastic here. The defining feature of the Azoth is that it supports 2.4GHz low-latency wireless and Bluetooth in addition to a wired connection. There isn’t another keyboard of the caliber of the Azoth that supports wireless, and that’s mainly because it’s hard to transmit a wireless signal through aluminum. Asus compromised, and I’m glad it did.
Battery life is exceptional too, even with the feature-rich OLED screen on the board. I started using the Azoth out of the box without charging (it arrived at about half battery). After a week of daily use, I only needed to charge it once, and I still have half the battery left as I’m typing this review.
The 75% form factor doesn’t automatically make the Azoth an enthusiast keyboard, and Asus has a lot of justifying to do for the $250 list price. I’m not comparing the Azoth to keyboards like the Razer Huntman V2 — which is similarly as expensive — because it comes with the features and typing experience worthy of an enthusiast badge.
