Final Words and conclusion

Final words and conclusion

There's little wrong with the ROG Strix Scope really, it offers the quality you may expect from Cherry MX RED switches in a nice and compact design. At this price though a wrist rest would have been nice, as well as some USB HUB functionality on the keyboard side. The one thing you'll need to get used to is that the F5 to F12 keys are used for other stuff like the stealth mode and multimedia functions. To access F11, you need to hit Fn +F11, and that's just weird considering the F1 to F4 row functions normally.  My moaning and groaning do end there though as this is a lovely keyboard with nice aluminum plating. If you get tired of the LED animations, you load up Corsair CUE and go with a soft static color tone, or even disable them if you wanted to do so. That is the flexibility of a software-controlled keyboard. The control software itself feels a little icky. Some primary RGB functionality you can switch at the keyboard side itself, the rest from the software.

Aesthetics 

These keyboards obviously look fantastic in your ROG infrastructure. I mean if you got that ROG motherboard, chassis, cooler, headset and monitor .. you're bound to get this product as well right?  The LED back-lighting animation system in combination with the nice dark casing and keys lighting up, well it is simply good looking. The Scope keyboards overall all are well designed and comfortable to play your games on, plus you get the added benefit of one of the coolest LED lighting systems a keyboard can ever have. In terms of aesthetics and design, no complaints here (side from them F5 to F12 keys). Personally I don't get the stealth key though, but I guess that's a matter of preference. 

Final words

ASUS has a lot going on with the Scope, but in a grand overlook of things, we also need to realize that the Cherry MX market is massively saturated. So what then does the Scope offer over the competition? Well, not much as these are the same Cherry MX Reds we've been testing for years now. The compact design is nice, the FFunction key layout, however, is weird. As always pricing will nbe a very desicwe factor for many, the Scope certainly aint cheap in the 149 USD (MSRP) running towards 200 USD for the version with other key switch options. For that money it would have been nice to see some sort og USB HUB, dedidcated volume/media buttons and at the very least a wrist rest, oppsed to opting an even more expensive deluxe edition. The keyboard offers a solid basis for being a profession gaming keyboard, they keys obviously feel familiar with our tested Cherry Red switches, and as such that does not feel any different from a professional keyboard with the same switches. Whether or not you find the price premium worth it is totally up to you. We, however, do like the keyboard and certainly can recommend it if you are that ROG afficionado. 

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