Fully programmable lighting
For some gamers, only mechanical keyboards will do. If you’re one of these gamers, ROCCAT is aiming squarely at you with their new Ryos series of keyboards. I had a chance to check them out here at CES this week.
What’s neat about the top selection in the line is that the user has their choice of four different CHERRY MX key switches (black, brown, red, and blue), letting them customize their board to their liking. Under the hood you’ll find 2 32-bit ARM processors and 2 MB of memory that help give Ryos responsiveness that ROCCAT is proud of.
The per-key lighting is the first thing I noticed when checking these boards out. I saw several different lighting profiles that did things like highlight macros, or dim every key except the WASD cluster. Users can customize every key’s lights freely. Bonus lighting tricks had random keys lighting up like a screensaver, and a dark-to-light key stroking feature is sure to be the new electronic form of bubble wrap popping. My favorite of these bonus tricks had keys lighting up (or shutting off) from left to right to represent a game’s health or mana bars.
There are two lit Ryos configurations, and both use mechanical keys and feature the same macro buttons.You get the whole shebang with the Pro model for $149. Drop one of the ARM processors, switch choice, and per-key lighting and you’ll have the Glow, priced at $129. Shut off all the lights and you’ll still have a mechanical keyboard with macro power for $99.
