Mechanical keyboards are swallowing the market at an alarming rate, but is there still a place for a high-end membrane keyboard with RGB lighting?
Product on Review: ROCCAT Horde AIMO
Manufacturer: ROCCAT
Street Price: £89.99 / $99.99
The market is currently awash with RGB mechanical keyboards, some of which command prices up to £200 for a full feature-set. So how much sense does a membrane keyboard make in 2018 for proper, competitive gaming?
The ROCCAT Horde AIMO features ROCCAT’s pioneered Membranical keys, supposedly offering the best of both worlds; a “silent” key with a distinct and precise feel. It’s also designed with latency in mind, with only a 7.8ms actuation speed, compared to a standard membrane keyboard’s 9.0ms.
Of course, as the AIMO nomenclature suggests, the keyboard also utilises ROCCAT’s RGB lighting eco-system, an intelligent lighting system that grows and adapts with your particular usage style, and also scales with other AIMO-enabled devices such as the Khan AIMO or Kone AIMO.
A tuning wheel, as ROCCAT calls it, is attached to the top-right-hand corner of the keyboard, seemingly to be used to adjust settings or parameters, with Volume, Brightness, Colour, DPI and Hotkeys annotated on their website.
Other features also include an island-style key layout, to help prevent dirt ingress over time, quick-fire macro keys, improved anti-ghosting, and a detachable wrist rest.
The ROCCAT Horde AIMO appears to offer the basics with some added flair, but can it really compete with a whole host of true mechanical offerings currently on the market?
ROCCAT on the Horde AIMO:
Meet the Horde AIMO, the fully equipped gaming keyboard that brings a new meaning to the word extras. Built from the ground up, its ROCCAT-pioneered Membranical keys represent the best of both worlds between membrane and mechanical. The custom keys were designed and engineered from scratch to enhance key distinction and precision. The Horde AIMO also boasts quick-fire macro keys, a configurable Tuning Wheel and keys plus multi-zone RGB illumination customizable in 16.8m colors to make it the most feature-rich keyboard on the market. Fully equipped, period.
Technical Specifications
ARM Cortex-M0+ 50MHz
512kB onboard memory
1000Hz polling rate
1.2mm actuation point for macro keys
LED driver, 256 steps PWM control
Six-zone illumination with 12 RGB LEDs
Wheel encoder with 20 steps
1.8m braided USB cable
DIMENSIONS / WEIGHT
Weight 1100g
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Windows® 8, Windows® 7, Windows® 10
Internet connection for driver installation
USB 2.0 Port
512kB onboard memory
1000Hz polling rate
1.2mm actuation point for macro keys
LED driver, 256 steps PWM control
Six-zone illumination with 12 RGB LEDs
Wheel encoder with 20 steps
1.8m braided USB cable
DIMENSIONS / WEIGHT
Weight 1100g
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Windows® 8, Windows® 7, Windows® 10
Internet connection for driver installation
USB 2.0 Port
Packaging & First Look
As is the norm for a ROCCAT product, the packaging is dark with a simple image of the product on the front. Some basic annotations help you understand what is going on and there’s a sticker clearly showing the keyboard layout inside the box.
The rear gives a more in-depth look at what’s what, including descriptions of the keyboards key features.
Included with the keyboard is a set of stickers, instruction manual and warranty information.
The ROCCAT Horde AIMO is certainly sizeable, to say the least, with large borders around the keys and a massive wrist rest.
We’ll look at the keyboard in more detail on the following pages.
Closer Look
The keycaps are designed on an island layout, with a plastic tray over the top, helping prevent dust and debris from getting into and below the keys.The plastic section above the F1-F4 keys is designed as a mounting point for 3D Printed parts, which you can make at home using downloadable plans.
The wrist rest doesn’t quite sit flush with the front of the keyboard but it does clip into place underneath to remain stable. Front to back, with the palm rest attached, the keyboard is 235mm (160mm without).
The keyboard is very flat when looked at from the right or left, however the riser feet at the rear provide an extra 10mm of lift, giving a total of 35mm at the back.
The top right of the board is home to a large selection of function keys and the Tuning Wheel. Most of the functions keys work in tandem with the oversize wheel, giving more accurate control over things like keyboard brightness or volume and microphone settings.
Closer Look (Continued)
The left-hand edge of the keyboard features 5 Macro keys which can be configured via the ROCCAT Swarm software. These are tuned for even faster deployment than the regular keys, with a 5ms actuation time.
The underside of the keyboard is channelled down the middle, standing around 3mm or 4mm from the desk; just about thick enough to run a hefty headphone cable under, if you happen to need something like that. There’s several rubbed pads at various locations on the bottom, to prevent any kind of movement in the heat of battle.
The tips of the riser feet are also rubber coated. They increase the height by 10mm.
Software
ROCCAT uses the SWARM software suite for its peripherals, a unified interface that allows you to customise the on-board features.
Below is a short video showing the main features within the ROCCAT Swarm software suite.
Performance Testing
The ROCCAT Horde AIMO is being advertised directly as a gaming keyboard, therefore gaming performance should be first and foremost on the list of priorities. We used Battlefield 1, Company of Heroes, PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS and War Thunder to gain an understanding of how the keys respond, as well as the island layout that is advertised. Even though we’ve become accustomed to a mechanical keyboard for gaming, we didn’t feel as though the synapse keys really affected our performance, it just changed the way play felt; the fingertip design of the keys as well as the coating on the surface was a joy though, giving a reassuring feel. There’s a small lip added onto the W key, obviously to help players find WASD without looking, but we didn’t like that at all, finding it somewhat off-putting, especially at first.Despite ROCCAT’s efforts to produce a cheap, reliable key that will feel like a mechanical key with the precise feel, it’s nothing like a mechanical key in actual feel, especially if you’re accustomed to using a high quality tactile keyswitch such as a Cherry MX Blue. Having said that, they are much quieter, almost silent even, so those amongst you that are more sensitive to the noisey tap-tap-tap of a mechanical board will be pleased.
The palm rest and overall size is comfortable to use, and the key spacing was very easy to get used to, but due to that large border around the keys, and the increasing popularity of tenkeyless boards within the gaming industry, we found it was a little too wide to play with a low sensitivity mouse setting; we constantly bumped into the right edge of the Horde AIMO which isn’t acceptable. Bear that in mind for your specific sitting position.
ROCCAT makes a big song and dance about their AIMO lighting system, claiming it’s the most natural and intuitive way to light your desk and peripherals, but we can’t see the point on this board. Even in a dark room, the lighting was dull and lifeless. The effects weren’t much better either frankly, seeming to activate in 4 particular zones on the board, instead of each key being completely individual. We don’t feel this truly deserves the AIMO branding after seeing the lighting on the Kone AIMO last year.
To give praise where it’s due, the tuning wheel in the top-right corner is fantastic. The functions available as standard can be very handy to some users, especially those who use their PC work business and pleasure. Volume and Microphone settings, as well as brightness and colour for the RGB lighting are available. You can also switch between profiles and even cycle through open windows via the wheel.
If you’ve used any recent ROCCAT gear, you’ll be aware of their HyperShift function, which allows more than one function to be applied to each key, which will activate when the HyperShift button is help down – as default it’s the CAPS lock key. This is a handy feature, especially for those who use complex programs or wish to assign more than one macro to each macro key.
Conclusion
We raised the question at the start of the review “how much sense does a membrane keyboard make in 2018 for proper, competitive gaming?”Our response to that would be, not much. If you’re after a properly competitive gaming keyboard, which will gain you an advantage, grab a proper mechanical board with a high quality keyswitch. But, on the other hand, there are plenty of casual gamers out there, playing slower paced games, for a bit of fun, once a fortnight. The rest of the time, they don’t need loud, clicky keys that will wake the kids. For those people, we feel the Horde AIMO makes absolute sense.
We looked at the Razer Cynosa Chroma back in February, which provided masses of RGB lighting, and great gaming performance, but it didn’t offer much in the way of everyday usefulness, which is what the Horde AIMO provides in heaps. The Tuning Wheel is fantastic; within the software, this can be configured to do so much more than standard.
We mentioned RGB lighting, and the AIMO branding. Unfortunately, the lighting on this board is terrible, possibly even the worst we’ve tested yet, but at least it’s subtle. If that’s what you’re after, then it will obviously be fit for purpose. The lighting was bright enough to read the keys in the dark, but don’t expect anything mind-blowing.
The large size made the keyboard comfortable to use for extended periods, but again, it also blocks a sizeable portion of space to the right of the keyboard; if you use your mouse within close proximity to your keyboard, we’d suggest you steer clear and look at tenkeyless options instead.
If you’re serious about winning and use your PC almost exclusively for gaming, look at true mechanical options, but for casual gamers with work being the main objective, the Horde AIMO makes sense.
Pros
+ Comfortable to use
+ Detachable wrist rest
+ Tuning Wheel is fantastic
+ Dedicated media keys
+ Has Macro keys
Neutral
+- Price
Cons
– Not really close to a mechanical feel
– Large size was obstructive
– Poor RGB lighting
+ Comfortable to use
+ Detachable wrist rest
+ Tuning Wheel is fantastic
+ Dedicated media keys
+ Has Macro keys
Neutral
+- Price
Cons
– Not really close to a mechanical feel
– Large size was obstructive
– Poor RGB lighting
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