Introduction

Another year, another CES that happened in January—sort of, anyway. While manufacturers and the media come to terms with this new normal, products continue to be developed, and this is the time of year when I personally look to see what annual increments have been introduced in the world of keyboards. Last year brought about higher processing power microcontrollers, and these allowed for such features as increased polling rates and more dedicated onboard profiles and controls. Towards the end of the previous year, it also became evident that mainstream brands had realized the mechanical keyboard community could be better woo'd by adopting enthusiast features, such as PBT keycaps, hot-swappable switches, and even developing custom switches of various types. ASUS got on this train relatively early with modular keyboards in addition to developing its own optical and mechanical switches, so what increments has the Taiwan-based brand implemented this year?


The ROG Strix Flare review a little over three years ago was my first ASUS keyboard review, and the first on TechPowerUp, too. It was a full-size keyboard with the usual flagship gaming keyboard features for the time, including dedicated volume and media playback controls, per-key 16.8 M RGB backlighting, an aluminium frame, wrist rest, and plenty of ROG branding, including a customizable plexi insert in the top-right corner. The all-new Strix Flare II is certainly an iteration over the same formula and once again finds itself the regular flagship for the ROG keyboard lineup since the Claymore is more of a halo product showing off ASUS's creativity. But this time, there is another version that might interest you more, and the tell-tale LEDs in the top-right corner help make the Strix Flare II Animate well worth checking out—let's begin with a look at the product specifications below. Thanks to ASUS for providing TechPowerUp a review sample!

Specifications