ASUS TUF Gaming K7 IP56 Gaming Keyboard Review

A Closer Look

The keyboard is very nicely designed, with a rather dark and industrial look about it. This comes from the use of dark black keycaps, as well as that muted finish on the aluminium top panel. This also makes it feel robust too, the whole thing has a nice weight to it and is very rigid. You can pick it up from one end, and there’s no flex to it at all.

The keycaps themselves are nicely designed and come with a large font and smooth coating that makes them feel quite pleasing to the touch. There are a few extra features tucked in though, which is nice, as there are no extra macro keys or standalone multimedia controls. Here you can see the 1, 2, 3, and 4 buttons have some profile toggles, which you can access with the Fn-Shift function.

Windows Lock

There’s a Windows Key Lock mode too, which is always handy while you’re gaming. Nothing worse than being in the middle of a battle, only to hit that and be left staring at your desktop wallpaper.

If you like to listen to a lot of music while you’re working and gaming, you’ll find some basic multimedia controls up top too. For me, these are great as I can skip through songs on Plex without tabbing out of my game or taking my hands off of the keyboard.

Volume Control

The same goes for volume controls, giving you access to a mute and master volume levels on the F9, F10 and F11 keys. It’s nothing crazy, but a few basic features like this certainly enhance the user experience.

For RGB lovers, you’ll find the keyboard comes with full AURA Sync support. This means you can pair up the lighting with all your other ASUS products from mice to motherboards. Furthermore, it means you have per-key lighting customisation. However, if you just want a quick fix, you can toggle modes and brightness here for the built-in effects such as reaction, fade, rainbow, etc.

The indicator LEDs are located here also, rather than in the top right of the keyboard. There are extra lights for things like Windows Lock too.

TUF GAMING

There’s not a lot of branding on show either, which is nice. Although, I do like that “WE GOT YOUR BACK!” slogan on the top right.

The keyboard is quite slim and even with the kickstands deployed, I think it sits quite low. This is a good thing though, as a high keyboard is going to be murder on your wrists. Of course, this one comes with a wrist rest too, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

Typing Angle

The chassis of the keyboard is plastic, but it’s very hard wearing and nicely designed. You can clearly see that mounted aluminium top plate that gives the keyboard its premium look and feel.

On the underside, there are durable grip in each corner, which helps keep the keyboard firmly planted on your desk. Even when you deploy those kickstands, they have their own rubber grips on them so you don’t lose too much traction.

In typical ASUS style though, even the underside of the keyboard is style and patterned.