i-Rocks Golem K50E Gaming Keyboard Review

Performance

Plugging in the keyboard, you’re treated to that lovely LED backlighting lights up every key on the keyboard. It’s not the brightest, but it’s enough to make the lettering clear in a bright room, while in a darker environment you can see that subtle under glow behind the key-caps, which looks pretty cool. One nice little touch is the caplock, scroll lock and numlock indicator, which is formed into a single strip light at the top, albeit with three lights inside it, this is matched by the mode light, which has a light on the left, giving it a nice fade effect.

The switches on this keyboard are a big surprise, I’ve used scissor-switch keys before, but they’re often quite low-set, giving them a more “laptop” type feel. The higher mounting of the scissor mechanism on the keys really changes the feel and if I had to find a close match, I would say they’re very similar to Cherry MX Brown; I’ll even go further to say that they feel better to type on than Cherry MX Brown. The action is quick enough for frantic keystrokes, with a good level of key bounce. You still get the “bump” that you get with MX Brown, but with a dampened action when fully depressed; effectively the keyboard feels like it has O-Ring mods installed and that’s no bad thing.

The excellent tying action feels like a mechanical, but it comes without one of the common drawbacks of (for example) Cherry MX switches, the keys are incredibly quiet! This is one of the quietest keyboards I’ve ever used, but it still has the lovely typing action of a mechanical keyboard and that tactile sensation to entertain your fingertip. This means the keyboard acts and feels responsive and when you’re playing a game like DOTA or StarCraft II, you’ll be confident in your key-strokes and the keyboard will keep up nicely.

Typing on this keyboard, such as long emails, or in my case, this entire review, is very enjoyable. You’ve got the gentleness of a membrane keyboard, with the lighter and more responsive switch type found in mechanicals, so you’re getting all the best qualities of both switch types.