RK ROYAL KLUDGE RK61 Wireless 60% Triple Mode BT5.0/2.4G/USB-C Mechanical Keyboard, 61 Keys Bluetooth Mechanical Keyboard, Compact Gaming Keyboard with Software (Hot Swappable Red Switch, White)

As the title implies, this is by far the clickiest and clackiest fun keyboard that I have ever owned, although admittedly it is only the second mechanical keyboard that I bought for myself. I like the sounds they make because they feel therapeutic in a sense and help me to focus better while working and typing in general. Its fun, and if you like a strong yet soft pearlescent futuristic blue color, then this could be good for you too! My only gripe with it would be only small, and that is that the provided keycap remover is very awkward to use, but everything else is fine.

Ive been used this keyboard little over one year, but a lot of type errors by skipping. The battery often gone fast, so I was using it with power cable most time. I thought that this one is hot swap, but it isnt, so some people like me might not cheated. Good thing is good typing and shape if it works but time to time it is not good by typing over. Thus I move to Keychron K2 and bye to Kg 61. I still using some of their key caps at least. I am not recommend this to anyone. After this review, they send me message saying that mine (year 2020) was not hot swap model, so they clear what was my misunderstanding. and they suggest detail more info for Bluetooth disconnection. So I like to share it. First time when I was experiencing disconnection after a week later of using it because I am not heavy typing person. But after recharging it, it became faster losing quickly perhaps battery quality is not great. I didnt want to charge and back and forth a lot, so after doing few time charge more I give up using wireless. This was less than a few weeks after I purchased it. However difficulty to use this keyboard is the typing response. even after I using cable, response of tying often slower. When it is connected to cable it must work all the time, but it was not and also when the keyboard is connected cable, wireless must not work, but it seems keep on working. is this switch back really functioning right? I am not sure. anyway because they response to my writing I go one more star. new update 11/4/21 the seller is very nice and understand my situation and sending me a new replace without any extra pay. Because of their great effort for the customers satisfaction, at this moment I like to give them 5 stars and I can see the new one is hot swap possible and extra switches and tools comes with it. At this moment this is worth enough company very responsible for their product and I keep watching closely for their new products.

Today I am reviewing the Royal Kludge 61. This keyboard seems to have a lot going for it. An entry level price at forty-five dollars, mechanical switches, backlighting, and Bluetooth. Let’s see how it holds up in real world use though. Initial Impressions: Things I noticed right off the bat. First, it is much heavier and more premium feeling than I expected. Second, the leds are brighter than I expected. Third, the switches feel okay for a keyboard of this price. I would say that they are more tactile than my Dell AT101W’s black alps, but not as smooth as my IBM Model F. Something that I noticed, but do not like, are the keycaps. They are really trying to push the “gamer” aesthetic. I would just like some plain keycaps, black with standard font. I also noticed that most of the caps were not fully depressed onto the stem of the switch. It wasn’t an issue to fix and took me only seconds, but that shouldn’t be an issue with a new keyboard. First typing: I would say here is where the keyboard begins to fail. The first thing I noticed was that it wobbles when you type on it. This is unforgivable with a keyboard. The wobble makes me feel less confident with each keystroke. I was able to correct this by putting eight sticky notes underneath one of the offending feet. Secondly, the layout is terrible! If it could be reprogrammed it would be very usable since it is a stock ANSI format. Here are some things that I see wrong with it initially. First, the escape key is the primary key on the top left corner. This makes it very hard to access the ` and ~. To get to these keys, you need to press the function key then it acts like it should. I would prefer to press function to get escape. Speaking of the function keys, F1-10 are in a line. Then it is interrupted by the led brightness buttons. F11 and F12 are in the next row down. I am a combination of confused and disappointed. First, why would your breakup something that has the perfect amount of space to complete? Secondly, why would you put the led control buttons in the function row? It really doesn’t make sense. Another major issue I see is the up arrow, the / key, and the ? key. This key is, by default, the up arrow. This makes typing questions a much more finicky process as you now must press 3 different keys! That’s an inexcusable error. Arrow keys should always take lower priority to main punctuation. Other than the outrageously horrible examples I provided above the rest of the layout is all but standard and is simple to use. Design thoughts: I have already discussed my dislike of the keycaps, that’s personal though. Things I would have like to have seen that wouldn’t have been too expensive to implement. Charge indicator leds! I would love to know when I need to charge my keyboard. The caps lock key not illuminating when it caps lock is not on is a good idea. It sort of takes away from the generally nice lighting though. I like the idea of having higher edges on the case. Many keyboards in this price range are not including a case that comes up to the bottom of the keycaps. Since this is a keyboard that people may carry around, I think that this was a smart move to protect the switches. Since the keycap layout is standard layout getting new keycaps for it would be a breeze. The spacebar is even standard size, something that is often not the case with smaller keyboards. The keycaps are a standard profile, no issues there. A few gripes with the keycaps. First, they don’t really have much texture. I sort of felt like my fingers slid a bit too much. Still very usable though. The keycaps also have glossy black plastic on the sides. This causes them to collect fingerprints and dirt easily. The glossy plastic does create a cool shining effect though. The tops of the caps aren’t glossy so I wouldn’t count this against them, just understand that you might be cleaning your keyboard more than you expected to. Switches: The keyboard comes with blue Jixian switches. They have a satisfying click and tactile bump. The pitch is much higher than my buckling spring keyboard, but also much lighter. I would say that they are smooth enough for general use. If you are an enthusiast you might not be completely happy with them, but if you are coming from rubber domes you will be very satisfied. Comparing them to my Outemu browns they are significantly more tactile, to the point where my browns feel linear. This was very good. I was able to type on this keyboard without bottoming out, something I was unable to do on my Outemu browns. The wobble in the switch is acceptable for the price range. None of the stabilized keys seem to bind or have issues with off center keypresses. Off center keypresses are not an issue with these switches. I think this key switch works great for typing! It felt very similar to my Cherry MX Blues in a Das Keyboard. However, the click sound was higher pitched and the switch didn’t feel quite as stable, but still very usable. I had a few family, friends, and coworkers test this keyboard and tell me their opinions. Some have used mechanical keyboards some haven’t. Generally, they liked it and said it felt and sounded good. Bluetooth: Setting up Bluetooth the first time was a pain. The directions didn’t seem to help. When I contacted the seller, they said to press FN + Tab to enter Bluetooth mode. That would have been nice to see in the manual. After doing so pairing was much easier, but still took a few tries to get it right. I initially paired it with my Samsung S8+ and that was a nightmare. It seemed to send the function layers instead of the actual letters. This made it unusable. Pairing it with my Surface Pro 4 was the same as a wired connection. Summary: For $45 dollars I think this keyboard makes an interesting option. It does a lot right. The case feels solid, the switches sound and feel nice, and Bluetooth is a huge plus. However, the keymapping is the worst I have ever used. I think it is absurd that anyone thinks that I should use a function key, on top of my shift, to type a question mark! If they changed this, or allowed end users to remap the keyboard, I would have very little to complain about. Some nitpicky things that I have to say about it include the use of glossy plastic on the sides of the keycaps and how the manual should be rewritten to better explain the Bluetooth pairing process. In the end, I would recommend this keyboard, if and only if, they change the keymap. That was the part of the keyboard that I could not stand.

The Good -It has a great typing feel, having Kalih Blue switches, which are functionally identical to Cherry brand switches. -It arrived charged enough to go 3 days of use before needing to be plugged in, and has good power-saving measures in place to keep unnecessary battery drain to a minimum. -You can use it while charging, which cant be taken for granted. -The Backlighting is evenly distributed across the board and has multiple levels of brightness, including disabling it entirely. -You can have it simultaneously paired with up to 3 devices, and swap between them with a simple key combo. The Bad -The feet are simply rubber anti-skid pieces, not adjustable. -This is to be expected with a small form-factor board, but some of the FN keypresses are strange. For instance, to type ? , its no longer shift+/, its FN+shift+/. If youre still learning the board, youll end up selecting and deleting an entire line of whatever you were typing, since shift+/ now corresponds to the up arrow+shift. Youll get the hang of it, though. -No media controls, not even a volume up or down. The Ugly - This may just be a problem with my board, but reviews Ive seen online hint that it might be very common to the product: It is uneven. If youre trying to type on a flat surface, it will wobble back and forth like a table with a short leg. This isnt a problem for me, since Im using it on my lap for my living room computer, but its something to keep in mind.

I’ve been needing a new keyboard and was on the edge about this one but it is really nice. Changed the switches for personal preference with ease. Smooth keycaps and all. Good purchase.

I bought this for super cheap when they were doing a sale. The cool blue backlight is pleasing to the eye. The backlighting effects are neat but unnecessary in my opinion. The RK blue clicky switches are very similar to gateron blues: Not so loud that it annoys me to type on, just a satisfying tactile click. Its still to much noise for an office environment though. I have installed dampeners that prevent the keycaps from bottoming out so it makes even less noise, but its still more audible than say a cherry mx or gateron brown. I use this keyboard (almost) expressly for my cellphone for texting, social media, or whatnot. It stays plugged in most of the time to a charger. So I have to turn on the bluetooth which is quite easy. It also is connected to my iPad and PC; and switching between them is a simple FN+Q,FN+W,or FN+E. And that works much better and reliably faster than any bluetooth headphones Ive ever owned. I do have a couple of gripes: 1. It will only stay connected via bluetooth before disconnecting for one minute without touching a key. Then I have to hit a key to get it to reconnect. My SK61 board is closer to 5 mins and more preferable. I wish that was adjustable. 2. The switch to turn on the Blutooth is on the back. Kind of annoying when youre not used to it. I wish there was a hot-key combo that powers it on and off like other keyboards. 3. When switched on, it does NOT save the setting of having the arrow keys (ALT,MENU,CTRL, and ?) turned off. You have to turn it off to use a question mark for typing EVERY SINGLE TIME. This combo is (FN+enter). A minor, but noteworthy gripe. 4. The case and keycaps are CHEAP. The case looks like a piece of cheap plastic that does not belong on a decent mechanical keyboard, and will probably shatter if dropped. The keycaps are the same. Although the font is easy to read, and the shine-through is nice, it feels like youre typing on plastic wrap. I dont know if its the ABS material or not. But they kinda suck. So I had to swap those out. Otherwise, this is a decent keyboard and decent value

The led was suprisingly bright and the keyboard it’s self was smaller than I expected one thing tho I don’t think it’s hot swappable the switch does not come off but so far so good

It’s actually a really good keyboard I have this thing for almost 2 years and it still works amazing at least for me I have no complaints.

The keyboard is great for the price there are some better options out there but for a wireless and hot swappable keyboard its fantastic. You can mod it or customize it if you would like.

UPDATE: Got the board replaced and it works perfectly now. Based on other reviews there might be a bad batch. This board is great and sounds nice, but I have been FIGHTING it to stay connected. I have to have it hardwired and the dongle plugged in and even then its spotty with registering keystrokes. Ive plugged, unplugged, tried bluetooth, etc and all that has happened is now specific keys do not work.