Redragon K580 VATA RGB LED Backlit Mechanical Gaming Keyboard with Macro Keys & Dedicated Media Controls, Onboard Macro Recording (Blue Switches)

Keys much louder than expected. Otherwise it is great. Love the colors and choice of patterns

If you just want to get to the bottom line, this is it: this keyboard is phenomenal for what youre paying. If you dont care about brand names and dont want to pay the high premiums that the industry standards charge, just stop thinking about it and pull the trigger. Ive been wanting to write this review for awhile. Ive had this keyboard for over a year, and Im typing on it right now. I bought it when my previous keyboard, a Redragon Indrah, had started to deteriorate on me (the switches were fine, but the LEDs started to fail. I didnt take great care of it, so I pin that on me). That keyboard was pretty good; it had full rgb, switches were good and it had macros and media keys. However, besides what I consider a premature failure, it had a large footprint, and its looks werent exactly to my preference. After considering more established options from Corsair, Logitech, etc., I decided it was better to save the money and buy the Vata since it seemed like an overall improvement over the Indrah at more or less the same price. I do not regret my decision in the slightest. Lets talk switches and feel first, since thats the most important part of the product. They feel great. Theyre blues on this keyboard, which is how I like it -- good actuation force, tactile, and oh so clicky. I dont have an insane amount of experience on other keyboards, so Im no expert on the matter, but I usually prefer my keyboard over other keyboards Ive tried. The main, direct comparisons I can offer are to that of Logitechs and Razers (both newer and older) blues, and I can say for certain that this keyboard is easily on the same level. Cherry clones have come a long way. In most cases Ive seen their performance nearly indistinguishable, and the Outemus on this board is no exception. If blues arent your thing, I know they have the Vata in optical browns, but I cant exactly speak for those. The keycaps are probably the low point in this keyboard, but by no means are they bad. They have a slight amount of wobble, which may annoy those who are used to more premium offerings, but I find that to be a nitpick -- I dont even notice it. They larger issue with the keycaps is that theyre the generic type with this gamer style font that you see on a lot of budget keyboards, so they dont look too unique or appealing, but more on that later. Overall, the feel is great, and I have no complaints. Now lets review the feature set. I honestly find this to be just as important as the feel just because I really like having my media keys and shortcuts. A fleshed out feature set on keyboards in this price range is pretty rare, but this keyboard punches the ticket. It has media keys, most importantly a physical volume rocker, which is a huge plus in my book. It has macro keys, that honestly I dont use too much, but they work fine. They have some shortcuts too, but frankly the one I find myself using the most is the calculator shortcut. Youd think this isnt something that substantial, but I honestly use it every time I need to use a calculator and I appreciate its inclusion immensely. Really, the only feature omitted that I would LOVE see is a USB passthrough for my Xbox controller or headphones. The other criticism I have is that the feel of the macros are subpar. They are made of this hard rubber material, and have a membrane feel to them. As I said previously, I dont use macros too much anyways, but I have to mention it. Theyre not awful, just okay. The media keys on the other hand have this clicky feel to them, which is great, and the volume rocker is pretty good. Maybe the steps could be more outspoken, but thats not an issue at all. The extra features for the Vata are absolutely solid, and its frankly what makes this keyboard, in my opinion, stand above the rest in this price bracket. The last thing I have to mention is the software. The keyboard is mainly advertised as being able to change its configuration through key combinations, but the keyboard does have software on the Redragon website. Unfortunately its pretty bad. I cant speak on it thoroughly because I only recently found out about it, but you can configure the macros from there, which I havent done, as well as the LEDs. Im not sure if you can customize the individual switch colors (my inclination is no), but you can customize the overall color of each of the effects. I have my keyboard one solid color, so it works fine for that. I have to say the functionality is not all there and the user experience isnt great. Finally lets go over the looks and build. Let me open with the chassis: it has a plastic backing with a metal front plate, which makes the keyboard extremely firm. Pretty much absent of any flex, and it has a pretty decent weight to it too. The pads are good, and it has the adjustable back legs to raise the keyboard, which is how I prefer to type. The footprint is slim for a full sized keyboard, which is great. Not bulky in the slightest, but still firm and solid. In terms of looks, Id say this category is respectable. The frame has a matte finish, which is my preference over anything glossy or brushed. The switch LEDs are great. Unlike the Indrah, none of them have failed on me and they color match my other peripherals on the tee, given the same RGB values. They even have a LED strip on the side of the board which doesnt look bad, but you cant really customize through the software like you can with the switch LEDs, which is a bummer. They arent too bright either, so they just get a pass from me. The main detractor for appearance on this keyboard are the aforementioned keycaps. They just look okay, and the aggressive but generic font does it no favors. They dont look bad, but Ive seen these caps on so many other boards that its just disappointing. Also, the light passthrough isnt the greatest. I wouldnt be complaining if they had that generic Arial-like font that so many keycap sets have since that seems to be the industry default. I know they wouldnt have cost more than the caps equipped here, but I digress. You can always easily replace the keycaps if you want, unlike most other things on a keyboard. The build gets a full pass from me, the LEDs are formidable, but the keycaps are my major criticism here. At the end of this review, I have to come back to the price. At less than seventy dollars, this keyboard is criminal. Every time I window shop other keyboards, I can never find a full sized keyboard that at its core is worth it when an offering like this available, so I rarely ever think twice about switching. I love the feel of this keyboard, and the added features such as the media keys are something I cant be without. Rigidness of the chassis is also something to behold. My main points for criticism is the keycaps, the software, and the lack of USB passthrough, but honestly those three points are pretty minimal in my overall opinion here. The keycaps are probably the worst offense here, but I cant say theyre bad and I can always replace them if I wanted to. The software is the equivalent of some cheaply made Chinese software, but it works for what I need it to and I dont like spending too much time in my peripherals software anyway -- at least it seems lightweight compared to the other suites that I have installed like iCUE or G Hub. Finally, the USB passthrough is really just a nitpick, and is just a quality of life feature I would love to see. I write this lengthy review for the appreciation I have for this keyboard. My keyboard is how I connect to my computer, which is something I spend a lot of time on given my profession, and the Vata serves me well. I just cant get over the completeness of this keyboard at the price that its at. Redragon is a brand that seems like a cheap Chinese brand, and while admittedly their product line seems a bit inconsistent, they do have solid offerings and this is one of them. As more time goes on, I notice they release more enticing keyboards, such as the wireless 60% they just came out with (though I cant actually speak on the quality of that product). I hope that people realize how competitive of a keyboard this is in its category. I also hope a Redragon representative or related reads this and releases a variation of the Vata with a USB passthrough ;). My perfect version of this keyboard would be a more subtle keycap set, with USB passthrough, maybe even with solid Bluetooth functionality. If they could release that at 90 or less, its something Id pick up in heartbeat.

Maybe it is just me. I expected these brown switches to provide some tactile feel. they do not (at least not what I was expecting). I find that even slight pressure will trigger the key. I am not that big of a fan. These brown switches on this keyboard have no discernible push-back, so they behave more like what I would have expected from a red switch. These brown switches have a very clacky sound - which is what I might expect from a blue switch. Even if you try to type very softly to not push the switch all the way to the bottom - it clacks quite loudly. What I was HOPING for was relatively quiet switches with a tactile feel - or an edge that I could push past to make the key engage. Other than that - the colors are great and the keyboard feels like it costs hundreds of dollars. It works right out of the box, and the keyboard shortcuts give some interesting visuals. I would like an easy way to set all the keys to a single color. It may be in there, but so far I have not found it (today is my first day)

So, I have a weird thing where its REALLY satisfying to me have zones defined on my keyboard. Its probably cool for gamers to be able to color-code keystrokes, or for editors to color-code hotkeys, etc, but for me its all about organizing my keys. My letters are white, Tab-CAPS-Shift are yellow, numbers are blue (so is Fn), arrows and the Escape and Windows keys are red, Ctrl-Alt-Options and all the page-moving keys (home, pageup, etc) are purple, punctuation and math keys are orange, and F1 thru F12 are green along with the spacebar, enter, and backspace. I dont know WHAT about that makes sense to me, SOME of it is obvious (white is the most legible, so it makes sense the letters are white, and both the numbers along the top AND on the numpad are blue and thats pretty legible too), but like why did I pick yellow for just three keys? Why green for the F keys? I dont know and it doesnt matter - the point is, I love that I COULD make the keyboard look like this and it scratches an itch I didnt know I had. I actually has helped me with typing - Im not a terrible typist, but, I have trouble typing without looking at the keys. Having the letters be the only white keys and having them surrounded by colors has allowed me to see them a little in my peripheral, which has meant needing to look less often, and now I actually dont need to look almost ever (unless Im using lots of punctuation in quick succession or using keys I dont use often). So thats been kind of cool, Im almost thirty and this is the first time I havent felt like a liiiiittle bit dumb when Im typing, because now I dont have to watch every keystroke anymore. But also it just looks cool and thats probably more important to most people. Also, JUST for the record, I have so much trouble using my stupid lame work keybaord now, its one of those little chiclet key ones thats just, ugh. Ive gotten so used to having the big chunky solid CLICK sound on every stroke that using lesser keyboards is literally actually unpleasant now. I despise my laptop keyboard, my friends stupid keyboards, the keyboards at my work office, etc - nothing stacks up to feeling that CLACKCLACKCLACK every time Im typing anything to anyone. Everything I write to anyone, my fingers feel like toy machine guns, just, its awesome, its very hard to describe the actual tactile feeling of typing everything on a mechanical keyboard, its next-level.

I like this keyboard, it has a good lights also differents lights modes, the only weak part is on the software, I simple and does no have many option to personalize the lights. I love the macros and the multimedia controls. Im satisfied

I wasnt expecting it to be this good! Great lighting, great tactile feedback, and I love the loud clicky sound to the blue keys! My wife also uses it when she works from home a few hours a week . She loves it too! She gets sad when she goes back to the office with her plain black office keyboard!.....Boring!

The keyboard looks new out of the box. However, when I first received it, the box looked torn apart with the seals also broken. This is an issue because I paid the price for a new keyboard and received a maybe returned one. This issue is the only reason this product is receiving four stars instead of five. Other than that, I seem to have no issues with the keyboard. Additionally, there were no items missing from this slightly damaged box, so no complaints from me other than the box.

Well, its built nice, feels great, types great, looks amazing and has tons of options, and I love it for that, but one of the things I was looking forward to was being able to try out the extra variety of switches it came with. Switching them out ended with breaking 2 of the blue switches from using the provided tool, now.. not saying the tool was the issue, the issue was that the switches are so unbearably hard to pull out, its mind boggling. Yes I was doing it the right way, reviewed a couple videos which showed the tool being used on the north and south side (if youre looking at the switch from above) of the switches and pinching, which is exactly what I was doing. First switch I tried to pull out, the north (again if youre looking at the switch from above) side of the switch plastic area broke, which made it even more difficult to pull out. Now I had to pull this switch with force, and I mean A LOT of force for it to break free. Same thing happened to a second switch, but the second switch ended up breaking apart entirely and I had to bring out my pliers. Now this brings up an issue, what if I was wanting to replace switches to a different kind? Im afraid to do so when the first 2 switches ended up mangled (luckily I was able to replace said broken switches with the extra ones in the variety pack). All in all, the keyboard is nice but I was really looking forward to trying out more switches and Im afraid to. UPDATE: The seller has worked it out with me and sent replacement switches for no charge, they worked with me amazingly and Ive updated my rating accordingly. Thanks tons!