Luxia Le

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I finally decided to splurge on a new keyboard for general and long-term use and, after much deliberation, landed on the Royal Kludge RK-S98. Here are my thoughts.

Royal Kludge RK-S98: At a Glance

Keyboard	Royal Kludge RK-S98
Price	$105.99
Tier	Premium
Switches	Royal Kludge Viridian
Keycap Profile	OEM
Keycap Material	PBT
Interface	USB-C, Bluetooth, 2.4 GHz
Layout	USA ANSI (96%)
Keyboard Type	Mechanical
Hot-Swappable?	Yes

Royal Kludge RK-S98: My Thoughts

So, I ended up really loving this keyboard. I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about it, but it ended up satisfying all the feelings I wanted to feel with my keyboard. I did modify it in the end as I wanted a different set of switches and keycaps (aesthetic reasons), but I really liked it right out of the box, too.

Price

The keyboard retails for $105.99. I think I might have gotten it on sale, but I’m honestly not overly sure. Either way, I would have paid $105.99 for it if I didn’t. So, it’s safe to say that I think the price is very fair.

Construction

The keyboard is not constructed cheaply at all. I’ve had problems with Royal Kludge keyboards in the past that made me wary of this for a long-term use keyboard. Ultimately, I’ll have to check back in in a year or so to see if it’s still holding up, but it feels very high-quality. It’s heavy in the hand, the plastic feels thick, and everything about it feels sleek and modern.

Keycaps

The keycaps the keyboard comes with are a low-profile OEM style double-shot PBT keycap. They’re very comfortable to use and feel very high quality.

Keyboard Mechanics

The keyboard uses a hot-swappable switch matrix with 5-pin sockets. It’s a 96% keyboard, so, some of the keys are truncated together. Overall, the keyboard worked great out of the box and was very easy to modify.

Problems I Encountered When Using the Royal Kludge RK-S98

The only real problem I encountered when using the RK-S98 is that the volume knob has a strange display issue on the on-board screen on the keyboard. When you turn the volume knob, there’s a bar that’s meant to show the volume level of the computer the board is connected to. However, the volume level indicator doesn’t seem to sync to the computer. It always assumes the computer is muted when first turning. This is mostly a cosmetic issue, though, as the volume knob still functions normally.