Asus Strix Tactic Pro Mechanical Keyboard Review

Pros

– Full Cherry MX switches in four flavors

– 100 Key Rollover with a mode to turn it down to 6KRO for competitions

– 21 Macro Keys – many of them located very close to your left hand

– Macro settings able to be saved to firmware on the keyboard under 3 different profiles

– On the fly macro recording in hardware

– Software lets you auto switch profiles depending on active program

– Media Keys

– Programmable backlighting

– Replaceable WASD keycaps

– Great Meaty USB cable

– Offset USB cable

Cons

– No RGB Backlighting

– No removable USB cable

– Large

– Replaceable WASD keypads seemed to be of a slightly different size

– Macros can not be assigned to regular keys

– No USB hub or headphone/microphone ports

– Software is only compatible with Strix products, not other Asus products

Summary – Silver Award

The price of $150-170 is high compared to Razer but similar to Corsair’s offerings.  The Corsair K95 has a similar feature set but misses out on a lot of the more useful macro switches.  The Razer on the other hand has more macro customization ability, but less dedicated macro keys.  Price wise then it’s fair in comparison to the competition but you are paying a good premium over a regular mechanical keyboard for the macro functionality and the NKRO features.

Quality wise it’s great and there’s nothing bad about it, but at this price point the missing detachable USB cable, USB hub and RGB lighting hurts.  If i’m paying this much, I’d rather pay a little more and have the extra features.  For these reasons despite being a good product it’s not overwhelmingly compelling for everyone and therefore gets a silver award.

Where to buy: Amazon