Roccat Horde AIMO Membranical RGB Keyboard Review

A Closer Look and Performance

The Horde comes hard-wired with an excellent quality USB cable. It features a tight braiding that looks great and should improve the overall lifespan of the cable. However, a removable cable would have been prefered, as they’re easily replaced if damaged.

The keyboard design is undoubtedly unique and breaks away from the standard rectangle design with a few funky shapes to each edge. Much like their new mouse, it uses a grey top plate over a matte black underplate, giving it an almost armoured appearance.

Macro Keys

The colour choice is undoubtedly interesting, but I think it looks fantastic. Either that or I’m happy to see something other than a black keyboard, as we’ve all seen plenty of those.

The keyboard uses a pretty tight enclosure around the switches too. This means the keys look like they have an ultra-low profile and gives the keyboard a sleek look overall. There are some dedicated macro keys on the left side too, which are fantastic for gaming, or just productivity shortcuts if you need them.

Low Profile

The low travel on the keys is excellent. They still feel pretty fast and responsive, with a quick return rate. If anything they feel like a Cherry MX Brown without the bump, but with an O-Ring mod to silence them. Fast, quiet, responsive, pretty much what you want from a gaming switch.

The top of the keyboard is littered with even more shortcut keys as well. The main ones are the multimedia controls. These keys mean you can skip through your music and control your volume with ease while working or gaming.

The rest of them control the profile for the wheel, allowing you to set volume, lighting, colour, effects and windows navigation functions to the wheel.

Wheel!

The wheel its self is nice and large, with infinite scrolling in both directions, allowing you to give it a good spin to dial in the settings of your choosing. It’s a gimmick, yes, but it’s one that works pretty darn well. Personally, I leave this set to volume controls. Of course, it’s programmable, so you can do pretty much anything you want with it.

The full-size number pad is pretty self-explanatory, and it’s nice having a number pad back, as I’ve been using a TKL keyboard for quite some time now.

On the underside of the Horde, you’ll find a durable chassis, with two large flip feet. There are rubber grips on all the contact points too, so it holds firm on your desk, even when you’re mashing the keys.

The feet are durable and wide and provide their own rubber grips too, so you don’t lose much traction while they’re deployed.

Wrist Rest

Included in the box, you’ll find this lovely wrist rest. It’s got the same curvy batwing design as the keyboard too, so it complements the ergonomics. It just clips into place, but it mounts firmly and the clips are nice and strong.

For working and gaming, or anything PC related, I can’t work without a wrist rest these days. Of course, the inclusion of one here makes me very happy indeed. It’s not padded or anything, but it still promotes a comfortable hand position, which is no bad thing.

The Horde looks fantastic on your desk, and it should do with that design. If anything, it makes me think of something you would see in the Batcave, most likely due to the armoured look it has. The design it a lovely match-up for the new Roccat Kone AIMO, pictured below.

While the keyboard does feature RGB lighting, it’s built into zones that light groups of keys at a time. This does seem to hurt the peak brightness a bit in a bright room it looks a little faded. It doesn’t look bad though, and honestly, I had trouble with my camera given its such a sunny day here at eTeknix HQ. Darken the room, and it’ll stand out fine, but per-key and brighter lighting would have been nice.

Gaming

For gaming, the low-profile and short actuation design of the keyboard is awesome. The keys are super fast and light for touch typing and frantic gaming in DOTA II. I mean, I still suck at MOBA games, but it’s not the keyboard that’s holding me back, that’s for sure. While I do prefer my mechanical keyboards, this does feel like a reliable alternative, and the virtually silent performance is going to appeal to those who hate the “clackety-clack” of mechanicals. However, it lacks a lot of the muddy switch feel you get with conventional membrane too.

The real perks of this keyboard come from its bonus features though. The inclusion of dedicated macro keys, a fully programmable layout, multimedia controls, and that cool wheel, all add up to an enjoyable product. It’s the little details that set it apart from the competition.

Admittedly, I would likely buy this keyboard just based on how cool it looks; the excellent performance is certainly helping with that decision though.