The ROG Falchion wireless keyboard we got this time is an extremely simplified style product, with a compact style of 68 keys, light and easy to carry, 65% key arrangement compared to 60% arrangement style to increase the most important directional keys and Page up/down and other practical keys, the full keyboard is made of PBT material, support translucent RGB AURA SYNC, keycaps are PBT The keyboard supports N-key rollover and the biggest highlight is the touch volume bar on the left side, which can be edited separately for other functions to aid gaming.

So, let’s dig into the detail!

Package Appearance

Package Front

Package Back

Internal Package

The accessories are included a package content card, manual, sticker, a Type-C-A adapter and a Type-A-C cable

Product Analysis

Keyboard Main body looking. Also comes with a polycarbonate protection case

The polycarbonate cover front and back looking
An adhesive pad with the ROG logo on the inside

Staggered brushed design on the bottom with ROG eye logo

When the case pad is underneath, there are openings on the side at the volume slider

The bottom support foot is a single segment design

On the top side are the on/off switch, Type-C connector and 2.4G wireless receiver storage slot, the slot has the Magnetically-attached design to avoid the loss

The wireless receiver

Quad-sides view of the keyboard

Take off a keycap, we can find the actual Cherry MX RGB Red switch

The net weight of the keyboard is 525g

The full weight of the keyboard and back cover is 677g

The keyboard is connected by both wired (Type-c) and 2.4G wireless but unfortunately does not support Bluetooth for easy multi-platform adaptation. The volume slider on the left side is responsive and can also be set to match different sliders for different applications.

RGB Backlight effects

Software Usability

ASUS peripherals are integrated into the Armoury Crate, allowing you to change AURA SYNC, lighting effects, and keyboard-related settings via Armoury Crate

The Keys settings in Armoury Crate

The Touch panel settings, this slider bar supports four different actions, swipe up, swipe down, top tap and bottom tap, which can be tied to each of the four functions

The Power settings allow the user to adjust the on/off and sleep time of the light effects, as well as an instant battery level display

The usage experience

Let’s start with the key experience, Cherry’s MX Red has been around for a long time, and as a gaming keyboard, the lack of a paragraph feel to the strikes does feel like something is missing, but the silence does solve a pain point for many users, and the quick rebound, as well as the easy trigger, is really an easy way to increase hand speed. Secondly, from a gamer’s point of view, the 68-key configuration does meet most of the usage scenarios, but unfortunately, it is extremely unfriendly to users who use function keys in the office area, and symbols and functions that require 2-3 layers of key combinations to press out must take a long time to get used to, which is why keyboards like the HHKB are simply not suitable for the average user. Plus, Falchion’s keycaps are slightly higher than Cherry’s, making the overall keyboard taller, it is best used with a handrest, whereas the Asus does not come with it and users need to purchase one separately. Once again, as a portable gaming keyboard, it’s a real shame that there’s no Bluetooth, although the 2.4G wireless is effective in reducing latency, the good thing is that the hibernation wake up time is very quick. As for battery life, ASUS officially says it can last up to 450 hours with the lights off, but unfortunately, the 4000mAh battery really won’t last that long, after close to 2 months or so of testing we found that the real usage time is around 320 hours without RGB, turned RGB on and adjusted to a moderate brightness (50%), it will support about 1 week around of moderate use. When testing the key conflict, we found that the Falchion did not achieve N-key rollover, and under the game ‘DJMAX Respect V’, any combination of 7 keys could not be pressed at the same time, this means that the keyboard is very unfriendly to multi-key music games

Disassembling analysis

This time, we disassembled the Falchion keyboard. Compared to other brands, the Falchion does not have many locking screws, which makes it relatively easy to teardown, and we also found very interesting things, which will be explained below.

All parts after disassembly

The main control board front and back

The Touch panel part is a touch-sensitive strip that often used on monitors for menu adjustment

The STM32L412 from STMicroelectronics is used as the main control chip

The wireless chip is one of the interesting things we found, the CC2640R2F from Texas Instruments. This chip is actually a Bluetooth wireless MCU and supports Low Energy BT version 5.1. But for some reason, Asus has not enabled all the features of this chip

Very sexy white PCB

The second very interesting point is the lithium-ion battery used in this keyboard, model C11P1707, 4000mAh, which is actually used for Asus  ZenFone Max M1, and this battery has not been modified at all for any connection, directly using the original BTB interface, we tested replacing a battery of the same model, the keyboard can light up and successfully identify the power in Armoury Crate. In other words, if the battery decays after more than 1 year of use, it is possible to solve the problem of lack of battery life by replacing it with customers themself. In theory, a C11P1706 battery with the same interface but a higher capacity of 5000mAh may also be directly replaced, but unfortunately, we did not have this battery and were unable to test

SUMMARY

Overall, this keyboard stands out in its category and is very well positioned in the market. In this current climate, more users prefer a lightweight and portable keyboard design language, and ASUS’ move into the 65% size at this time is indeed a major trend, after all, the bar for custom keyboards is now getting lower and lower, and pricing at around AU$239 is not stable in the Australian market, but this wireless keyboard competing with the Razer BlackWidow V3 Mini does have some price advantages. In terms of portability, the use of a 4000mAh battery and the support of fast charging does greatly extend the usage time, which really dispels the blind distrust of many users towards wireless keyboards and breaks the spell of “not only office peripherals deserve to have long battery life”.

EPIC PC RATE SCORE : 96/100

EPIC REWARD: EPIC RECOMMENDED, DESIGN AWARD

ASUS ROG FALCHION OFFICIAL WEBSITE: HERE

The full specification is shown as:

The package of the keyboard:

After open the front cover, the keyboard is directly shows at the front:

The out the keyboard main body, we can find the instruction menu and warranty paper under it, and the wrist support pad with plastic bag protected.

There are no attachment or gift contains in the package. USB cable is extremely thick, has been separated into two headers at the end side.

OK, Let’s go ahead to the main body of this keyboard.
Actually, this keyboard has the ‘frame-less’ design, it will be easier to keep the whole keyboard clean of dust.

The shortcut key for changing profile, RGB bright level changing key and windoes key lock. the profile change key will shows different colours when changing profiles.

The mute-sound key and the volume potentiometer are located on the top right corner

The CORSAIR LOGO indicator is actually RGB setup.

The old fasion designed tape deck buttons have been put between number pad and the volume potentiometer.

The space bar has the Anti Slippery design.

The space bar also has two satellite supporters.

OK, It’s the time to take all keycaps off and have a look for the switches.

the play buttons are designed by membrane technology

The ‘Zero’ key and other long keys are have the same support design.

This screw is hidden under this cap:

The bottom cover inside looking:

The bottom cover outside looking:

The circus board looking:

The main board controller chip for this keyboard is the entry level 32-bit 50MHz NXP LPC11U68JBD100 MCU based on ARM Cortex-M0+/M0 Cores

Now, let’s getting into the RGB area!

RGB per switch! Look closer!

The corsair logo close look

Function keys light

PER-KEY Lighting setup, customised for ‘EPIC PC’

All right! Let’s get something fun – changing a more sexy keycaps! Chrome Silver? Chrome Gold? or Chrome Red?

Chrome Silver has been selected. It’s AWESOME for the HDR looking!

We clicked-on the wrist pad, then take a look!

Single Lightup & RGB Lightup!

The USB 2.0 port at the top rear side.

Side view for the keyboard, we changed back the original white keycaps.

The Corsair iCUE software UI

Click on the keyboard icon and get into the main run-time view.

iCUE Device Setting menu: we can review the Polling rate, Light Brightness, Layout, Device memory usage and Firmware version number here.

iCUE Keyboard Profile page, we can find the default profile and the on-board other 3 profiles.

User is allowed to import and export their own customised profiles

iCUE Keyboard Macro setting page, it’s the design for a simplification perpose from the in-game complicated combinations input.

iCUE Lighting effect design page, we can setup the per-key and area colour, effect action, or even the combination of them.

Then, we decided to create a customised profile for a unique looking style!
After  research, we are finding out that the SOFTWARE PROFILE can be assigned to the specific program or game, which means when you start to run the specific program or game, the profile will automatically switch to the customised one that you set up before, but the HARDWARE PROFILE cannot be assigned because it controlled by the onboard key, which means you have to switch to the current profile that you set up and replaced before.

Both of Hardware profile and Software profile page can be customised the background picture and icon

You also can save the customised profile to the hardware profile (replace one of the three original profiles).

After the profile setup, let’s see the change! When we open the game called ‘The Matrix: Path of Neo’, keyboard light and customised key binding will show like this:

Is it Cool? Absolutely YES!

After using this keyboard a while for playing PUBG and CS-GO, this 45cN MX SPEED SWITCH is fantastic, to compare with the previous K70 RAPIDFIRE, the smooth touch feedback for new PBT keycaps has definitely better than the old designed ABS keycaps. The re-designed wrist pad has a split-area design and much softer touch feeling than the previous K70, it’s not sticky and easy to get cleaned (washable). To test the keyboard response and Key roll-over function, we played the game ‘DJMAX-Trilogy’. As Corsair mentioned ‘100% ANTI-GHOSTING WITH FULL-KEY ROLLOVER’, it’s no any conflict when playing music game and different combinations include function key are still working perfectly.

Overall, this keyboard we have to say, it has improved a lot from the previous version, but the price for this product is a bit over and similar to the K95 Platinum. So it’s not that friendly for the CP Value. Plus, there is no keycap remover inside the package, as a hi-end level mechanical gaming keyboard, no customised keycaps or other just-for-fun gifts inside the package is actually not so likable for some hardcore gamer, even a Corsair metal sticker is better than nothing, isn’t it?