ASUS XA02 ROG STRIX SCOPE RED – REVIEW OF ASUS’ NEW GAMING KEYBOARD

Over the past few years, we’ve gotten used to watching keyboards develop more and more aimed at professional gamers, over-the-top devices with tons of optional and customizable buttons or out-of-the-ordinary functionality. Asus is one of the most experienced companies in this area, but with the XA02 ROG Strix Scope RED model they wanted to try a small return to the basics. Let’s find out if the Asus idea has hit the mark.

Design

The style of the peripherals dedicated to gamers is never sober and the Asus ROG Strix Scope is no exception, even if as we said it presents itself as a strong reference to the origins. The new keyboard from Asus was certainly designed for FPS lovers, since it was designed with a large CTRL key at the expense of the classic Windows key, just to avoid unpleasant inconveniences.

In the design of this keyboard, there is another small gem, and it is the F12 key with Stealth mode , this interesting mode allows users to easily and quickly hide all the software, also silencing the audio, in order to close at any time and hide what we are doing. In order not to miss anything, the company has also added an additional key that allows you to switch from multimedia controls to function keys and vice versa. All these novelties have been called by Asus with the name of “ Xccurate Design ”.

As far as the dimensions of the keyboard are concerned, they are “full size” with very narrow edges to avoid clutter. To be precise, the keyboard has a size of 440 x 137 x 39 mm for a weight of 1070 grams including the USB cable. The keyboard is “obviously” mechanical and has respectable materials. The upper part of the keyboard is made of aluminum, while the rest is made of hard plastic, which even to the touch gives us a feeling of safety and solidity.

In our case, the keyboard is made up of red Cherry MX RGB, but all users can decide whether to choose between: Brown, Blue, Black, Silent Red and Speed Silver. In the box the company has also included a set of silver keycaps for the classic WASD, composition that can be improved with the ROG set for FPS and MOBA.

Software

The keyboard is accompanied by the ROG Armory II software which first of all allows you to customize the coloring, the effects and then to create profiles and macros. The software also has Aura Sync technology to synchronize the lighting effects with other products equipped with this functionality.Once the software is installed, users can configure the keyboard to their liking or be guided by some default configurations. Five customizable profiles can be saved on the keyboard memory: each profile can be combined with a macro, lighting setups and other more technical aspects such as key pressure statistics (a feature that allows pro players to understand during a gameplay how much you have actually used one key rather than another and improve your performance). We know the software well and on some occasions it is not yet performing, but all in all we cannot complain about its functioning and the customizations it offers to users.

Performance

The Asus ROG Strix Scope comes with Cherry MX Red switches by default, these keys immediately offer a good balance of tactile responsiveness, low noise and satisfying feel. As if this were not enough, users will be able to choose between other shades of color as we have written a little above.

Thanks to the use of these keys and the ROG Armory II software , users will be able to choose to best configure their peripheral, adapting it to both their style of play and the titles on which they want to try their hand. Without a shadow of a doubt during everyday use in simple typing, the keyboard is comfortable to use, responds perfectly and does not tire our fingers in the least. Most likely despite being of the “mechanical” type Asus has managed to reduce noise to a minimum and we found it much less noisy than other peripherals of the same caliber.

As anticipated at the beginning, the design of the keyboard is very simple, it has no wrist rests and is very compact despite being a “full size” , but this peculiarity makes it reactive and not bulky, with a style that can be combined with a any environment.

We wanted to test the keyboard with two different types of games: FPS and MOBA. As for shooters, we tried Overwatch and PUBG. On both occasions the pressure of the keys is immediate, the response to our pressure is really excellent, probably it was made much more for this type of games than for anything else (just see the CTRL key larger than normal). When we played League of Legends, we were faced with a keyboard a little more bulky than the previous one, but with a remarkable response to our decisions (it was able to keep up even in the most hectic sessions). Ultimately we think the XA02 ROG Strix Scope RED is transversal and can adapt well to all types of games that require a very fast response and a high level of sensitivity.

Price and availability

Currently the Asus ROG Strix Scope RED is sold at a recommended price of € 140.00, which leads it to immediately position itself in high-end keyboards. In this way Asus wanted to attack this market segment, which is currently full of products of very high thickness. It’s definitely not the most expensive gaming keyboard we can find around, but it’s not the cheapest either.

Despite this considering the resulting features, such as mechanical switches and RGB lighting, we believe the price is practically perfect. Although the design is one of the simplest we have seen in recent times and in contrast to its competitors, we still believe it is a device of innate technical value.

Conclusions

The ROG Strix Scope RED is a solid keyboard with a sober and not very innovative design, but which makes this one of its strengths. Like all mechanical-type keyboards, it lends itself perfectly to long FPS gaming sessions, especially when using Cherry MX Red switches. In general, the quality of the workmanship is really excellent, and it is interesting to take advantage of the functionality of the larger CTRL key and the F12 Stealth.

The backlight is fantastic, as well as customizable, users can also have fun creating their own profiles, making the most of the possibilities of the ROG Armory II software. The price is certainly not cheap and leads the keyboard to collide with the giants of this sector, perhaps it would have been convenient to include removable wrist rests inside the package.