ASUS Echelon Keyboard Review

👤by David Mitchelson Comments 📅22-10-14
Conclusion

Although ASUS now have STRIX – a dedicated gaming product line, it’s interesting to see how their products fared with the Echelon range prior to this.

Echelon appears to be a bit of a cheat, or even a quick-fix for ASUS. This keyboard is based upon the popular QPAD MK-85. ASUS haven’t designed their own keyboard, they’ve simply slapped on their own logo.

Build quality is something which Echelon does well with. The keyboard is solid and in this aspect it can be relied upon, it also has LED lighting and controls via the numpad section to control brightness. Along the top of the keyboard the F buttons double up to act as multimedia keys to add extra functionality.



Aside from the above, this is all we get. There is sadly no software included to customise the keyboard and we therefore cannot apply macros or modify individual keys. The LED backlighting although dimmable cannot be changed from its blue colour.

At a cost of £100 the Echelon is among one of the cheapest mechanical keyboards available and is an option for those wanting to jump ship from a membrane based peripheral.

Echelon is a reasonable option for a basic mechanical keyboard but there is no shying away from the fact that it lacks the finesse of other rivals at a similar price-point.

Pros
+ Minimalist design
+ Decent build quality
+ LED backlighting
+ On-the-fly buttons – LED/multimedia
+ Detachable wrist rest

Cons
- No software
- Lack of customisation
- Blue LED only
- No dedicated USB support



Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net. Thanks to Ebuyer for supplying this sample.


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