This Touch Bar Isn't A GIMMICK! - ASUS ROG Falchion NX Keyboard
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2022-05-05
·
2,022 words · ~10 min read
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- "Good keyboards are expensive comma man." So this keyboard is named after a sword
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and even though this video is sponsored by a ASUS ROG,
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I just have to read you this because, well, you'll see,
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it's called the ROG Falchion. And this is verbatim.
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The name Falchion is originated from French.
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Given to a rare one handed single edged sword found in Europe around 400 to 700 years ago.
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The length and weight allow faster strikes and superior maneuverability for advanced sword play.
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Now, here's the part where it gets really good. "When in the hands of a true minimalist,
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ROG Falchion is equally deadly on the virtual battlefield.
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Everything you need to claim swift victories, wherever you roam
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is in a compact package without compromise,"
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God damn it, I gotta have it. I'm not a true minimalist, but we'll try.
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See if I can wheedle this thing on the virtual battlefield.
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I got three in front of me. This one is the Brown switch type, which, you think that'll be the most popular?
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They also have a reds and blues, but these are not cherry these are ROG switches, more with that in a moment,
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let's just get through the unboxing. It's pretty small, it's a 65% keyboard,
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but it's actually smaller than what ACU says is the typical 65 percenter.
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I've added about 33 centimeters. This thing is 30.6 centimeters, which is actually closer to a 60% keyboard.
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They say the way they did that was by actually shortening some of the keys, but more on that in a moment too.
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A, to C cable for charging, this is a wireless keyboard
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so you don't need this all the time, but if you want wired play, you can do it.
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(paper rustling)
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Let's get to the actual keyboard. (paper rustling)
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There she blows, and there's an extra, there's just an extra for the peel.
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It is compact, and it has a dongle for a 2.4 gigahertz
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connection, zero latency, they say.
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But of course you can play wire too. I liked that there's a spot to hold the dongle
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and it actually appears to be magnetic. That is like a no scope, freaking gamers.
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This thing is a tight package, man it doesn't flex it really at all. And well, why would it, and have the size of this?
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And that is. (keyboard keys clicking) There's so much to think about (chuckling),
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Some height-adjust, those also are rubberized. Now I got the browns working right now.
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(keyboard keys clicking) It's tactile, what's that you're holding over there?
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- [Jono] Oh, are you gonna eat it? - Oh, yeah, I would say this is probably
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about one and a third bananas and it's about as thick as the tip, yeah, that's cool.
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(keyboard keys clicking) This is what it sounds like with the browns y'all (keyboard keys clicking)
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but I'll get them all out and we'll do a sound comparison later. Per key RGB lighting.
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This is the first wireless keyboard from ASUS
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that supports Aura sync actually. Cool, these key caps are PVT, double shot injected.
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They have a cool kind of tactile sandblasty look
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on the top of them you can see the double shot injector right there. It's white on the inside with the black around it,
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that's so the light can shine through the legend as you see here.
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The stems are a little shorter than a typical key cap. That's how they were able to get this shorter
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than even a normal 65 percenter. There's a trade off with that, which is that replacement key cap may not be compatible
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with this board. They specifically say that the page up and page down keys,
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which I never use personally are a non-standard height.
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I don't know what the rest of the keys, they might fit,
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but these look like pretty good key caps anyway. I like the legend, it's not too gamery
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but it's interesting looking, it's kind of sci-fi. Now another thing that's nice about this 65 percenter
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is it has arrow keys and they're totally normal they're not in a weird configuration or anything like that
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and when you're typing, what, we have a Shift, right where I'd expected to be on the pinky
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North American style enter key. I would probably remap the Delete and Insert
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because this is a non-standard configuration
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with these nav keys. It's nice that they have nav keys, but since you're gonna have to learn the position
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to use anyway, I would learn right off the bat
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having Delete right beside Backspace since they're kinda like,
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Backspace and Delete they kinda work together. Oh man, I just touched this touch bar thing
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and my computer did stuff. So this is a re-mappable capacitive touch bar
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and you can use the software, which we're gonna look at it in a second to change it
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from being your volume slider, to a battery indicator, to zoom in and out on maps and all sorts of stuff
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so, that is pretty cool. You can also, if you're afraid of hitting it,
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I believe you can do Function + Tab and lock it.
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Yeah, speaking of Function, there's a bunch of function keys on here
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you can do all the F keys you can see them printed on the bottom side of the key caps there, they're on the number row.
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There's also a bunch of media control keys in there and if you don't want to hit Function to hit,
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for each one of those strokes, you can actually do a function lock. You're just in function land,
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and you don't have to hold anything down. And finally, with the Function key you can do
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on the fly macros, and they made it super easy you do Function + left Alt.
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Now I'm in macro recording mode. (keyboard keys clicking) I type my macro and then that's the same thing to get out,
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Function + left Alt again, and my macro is recorded. And if you don't wanna do that,
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there's a way to do it in the software too. What about this case cover thing?
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Does it just friction fit on there? Oh, it's nice, it's snug.
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There's a bit of play because it actually hits the keys. Oh God, Oh my God (laughs).
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Maybe turn it off before you put this thing on. Here's what's a little different, you can, oh God,
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you can see that there's rubberized triangular skates
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on here as well so you actually meant to put it this way.
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And when you do that, they say that it will like defuse the RGB,
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I guess the side view of the RGB.
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And yes, you can still use the touch bar when it's in there. There's a little cutaway. - [David] Nice.
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They thought of everything. Now, battery life, they are claiming 450 hours of battery life
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on a single charge of this puppy. Of course, with RGB off.
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With RGB on 56 hours, 30 minutes a charge
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gets you 30 hours of gameplay. And it's all thanks to a
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4,000 million power lithium ion battery inside. Now how, oh God, let's do a switch comparison.
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(paper rustling) How many? - [Jono] They could be with anyone.
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(keyboard keys clicking) There you go, guys
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These are the clickiest. (keyboard keys clicking)
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I like the space bar sound for some reason, it is different than the rest of the keys.
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(keyboard keys clicking) That's not atypical. This will probably give you a competitive edge
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in a lamp party because people around you will be annoyed. (Jono laughs loudly)
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These are gonna be a little harder to press than the Reds we'll check in a second,
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but you can definitely feel that tactile click. (keyboard keys clicking)
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And then your brain is like, "Oh, I should go to the next letter, 'cause I've got it."
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All right, let's go onto the Reds. The linears, the gaming configuration.
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You wanna be able to press quickly. (keyboard keys clicking)
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That is pretty smooth. (keyboard keys clicking)
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Not a bad sound, either. (keyboard keys clicking)
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Not a bad sound. (keyboard keys clicking) - [Jono] I could use that. (keyboard keys clicking) Picture this in your life.
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I'm just writing it like a novel. And you guys don't know, but in my mind, it's very...
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(keyboard keys clicking) These are just so, because they're so small,
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like it was just so rock solid on the base. Like wanting me out is just dope.
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I'm gonna go back to the Browns. (keyboard keys clicking)
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Oh, the happy medium. (laughs) The goldilocks zone.
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(keyboard keys clicking)
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I think the Red one is the best.
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The Blue one sounds almost rattling compared to that. (keyboard keys clicking)
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Great, well, I like them a lot. Now let's hook them up to the software
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and see what it's like to really use this touch bar. So here, this is almost like when you're configuring
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wireless earphones for like what the different inputs do. So the inputs we get are a swipe up,
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which is you could call that swipe away, swipe up,
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swipe down, top section Tab,
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middle section Tab, and bottom section Tab. I don't know how that's demarcated.
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I don't know if it's like in thirds, I guess,
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you can make it display battery level, which is what I've got right now.
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I guess it's kind of like a health bar
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I'm down to kinda in the middle there, or you can make it sync with your keyboard lighting.
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That's pretty sweet. It's just basically like breathing RGB.
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It is possible to change just using your keyboard, the brightness and the pattern of the lights,
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but then there's lighting controls in here too. Okay, this is a lot more my speed,
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I like having a GUI instead. You can do the brightness, the speed of the pattern,
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the direction of the patterns, sick. How about outward ripple, sick.
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Oh, I like a chonky ripple.
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How about a slim ripple? Rain drops, sweet. Okay, I digress.
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I was tryna look at the touch thing. So swipe up, that can be volume, zoom.
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Okay, wait, if I go into zoom, I can make it zoom in or out.
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You can play inverted guys, select a key. Oh, I can just, I can pay respects with a swipe?
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That's dope, man hold on, there, oh, I made it R by accident.
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Oops, but look at that, you can actually go slow or you can go, you can rip,
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just like volume, I guess. Swipe down,
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okay, my body's ready. It's really cool how you can have different,
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like I can do volume with taps and then zooming in with swipes.
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This is powerful, robust.
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Okay guys, I think that is a pretty good overview of this beast, this puppy.
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I touched a lot of these keyboards. A lot of them, the cheap ones from Amazon,
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which aren't even that cheap or not this good. This is cool, I'm trying not to shill,
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but I'm not shilling. It's sponsored, but it's actually,
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it seems okay at first glance, I'll say that. Yeah, how much does it cost Jono?
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- [Jono] $159.99. - 160 hey, $160.
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I mean like the cheapest no-name brand Amazon basics,
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ones of these are gonna be like 30, 40 bucks,
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which is, a quarter.
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But hey, Chinese new years coming on,
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get those red envelopes. Yeah, good keyboards are expensive, What can I say?
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See you later. (all laughing)