I've had this keyboard for about a week now, and so far am very impressed. I bought this after eyeing RGB keyboards for several years, always put off by the high price and the insane light bleed. By light bleed, I mean when the keycaps are too high and allow the light beneath them to bleed out in all directions. The last thing I want in a darkened room is to have my keyboard shooting out colored lights all over my desk and depending on the angle, directly into my eyes. Either the LED was directly leaking light, or reflecting off the bottom of the board. The vast majority of keyboards I looked at in person for the first year or two had this issue, especially ones with mechanical switches. Logitech seemed to be the only company that properly sealed the LEDs so the keyboard didn't turn into a projector, however they use proprietary membrane switches that I do not care for. There's a few YouTube videos of people taking cardboard or other materials and tediously cutting holes for the switches, removing all the keycaps, and putting down a matte filter to prevent reflection. I decided to just wait until a viable option came up.
After a week's use, I am extremely happy with this keyboard. It is solid as a tank, saves your lighting profiles and macros to the board's memory (no software needed after initial setup) and there's no light bleed. The software is relatively difficult to use for a few minutes as you learn through trial and error. However after getting the hang of it, it's a piece of cake to set up. I have a couple of simple macros, and two main profiles for games.
The colors are very vivid and while I'm not a fan of RGB lighting on motherboards, RAM, or anything stupid like that, the keyboard is a perfect application. The selection of colors is great - I use dark blue as my main background and orange for my "contrast keys". For the Insert/Delete/Arros section I use a very nice green, magenta for numpad, and red and yellow for random other keys up top. After learning that you can select the whole board to change color simply by clicking and dragging a box over the keyboard, I was able to try a dozen different setups quickly before settling on my preferred one. As I said, once you learn the software it's pretty powerful and a snap to set up a new profile.
My only complaint is that on keys that have two symbols (function keys, numbers, numpad), the LED light really only lights up the top part of the key. This isn't an issue for the numbers or numpad since the important symbol is on top, but the traditional numbers below the F keys are pretty dark in a lighted room. At night it's not an issue and TBH it's not like I can't figure out where 3 or 8 is. However, for a $100 keyboard it is a bit of a let down and something G.Skill should fix going forward.
The uploaded picture is for Diablo 3, with keys 1-4, H and I lit up. I have the Brown switches which are great for typing or gaming.
| Brand | G.Skill |
|---|---|
| Item model number | RIPJAWS KM570 MX, Cherry MX Blue |
| Hardware Platform | PC |
| Operating System | Windows |
| Item Weight | 2.76 pounds |
| Product Dimensions | 17.6 x 6.2 x 1.8 inches |
| Item Dimensions LxWxH | 17.6 x 6.2 x 1.8 inches |
| Color | Single Red |
| Manufacturer | G.Skill International Enterprise Co., Ltd |
| ASIN | B01LZQKYZU |
| Is Discontinued By Manufacturer | No |
| Date First Available | October 30, 2016 |
