I got my grubby hands on Topre’s new Realforce RGB and I thought I would share my thoughts on it. Full disclosure: Topre sent me this keyboard knowing full well that I am a big nerd for them so they probably thought it would be a safe bet
Oddly enough, despite my general apathy toward backlit keyboards, the only two review units that have been offered to me to this point have been of that ilk. For those that remember, Cooler Master sent me a Quick Fire XTi for review last year. You can have a read of that here if you like.
On to the review!
Specifications
Main Features:
- Topre Switches: Premium tactile feel that conquers fatigue. Quieter and comfortable.
- RGB Backlighting: 16.8 million colors. Per-key lighting. Software control.
- Actuation Point Changer: Control your accuracy with 25% faster key to key transitions.
- Keycap Compatibility: Supports custom keycaps and padding (sold separately) for added comfort or style.
- Made in Japan: 33 years of unsurpassed quality control. Manufactured in-house with the finest materials and electronic components.
- Model name: AEAX01 (REALFORCE RGB)
- Weight: 1400 g (including packaging)
- Dimensions: 142 mm (W) x 455 mm (L) x 30 mm (H)
- Number of Keys: 108 Layout
- Length of cable: 1.5 m / 5 feet
- Switch: Electrostatic Capacitive & Non Contact Switch
- Key Life Time: 50 million times
- Key Weight: 45g ± 15 g
- Key Shapes: Ergonomic Step Sculpture
- N-Key Rollover: Full N key rollover
- Labelling of Keycaps: Double Shot Keycaps
- Interface: USB
- Warranty: 1 year limited warranty
So let’s first address the elephant in the room: Yes this is a keyboard targeted at gamers and many of us don’t care for RGB or buy into the cringey marketing fluff that is typically attached to such keyboards. I will be looking at the Realforce RGB for what it is, and honestly giving my opinions on what I personally feel are the positive and negative aspects.
In terms of the technical specifications, there’s not much difference between the RGB and a standard Realforce keyboard. The biggest stand-out difference in the tech specs list is probably just the double-shot ABS keycaps – a first for a premium Realforce and probably one of the things that many people are apprehensive about when they look at the RGB compared to the standard Realforce with its PBT keycaps. I tested briefly the N-KRO functionality on Microsoft’s Keyboard Ghosting Demonstration website and the Realforce RGB seems to be correctly registering huge open-palm mashes without a problem.
The feature list is where Topre have spent most of their energy with this keyboard, and this is where we begin to see the radical differences, which I will touch on in further detail below...
Packaging
Many of you are probably familiar with Topre’s very no-frills cardboard box keyboard packaging. Aside from a few Engrish bullet points (including the famous “oneness with cup rubber”), the box doesn’t tell you much else, and maybe that’s the way it ought to be. The thing is, once you’ve seen one Realforce box, you may as well have seen them all – they haven’t really changed it in over 15 years.
As for the Realforce RGB: On the outside, we have a slim cardboard sleeve with all the branding and marketing. Opening that up we have, from what I can tell, a black version of Topre’s el classico brown cardboard box, which opens to the Realforce itself which, instead of the usual loosely fitting gigantic condom, is sheathed in a foam bag of sorts. As far as accessories and other stuff, we just have the giant reference card / user manual. No keycap pullers or replacement keycaps or anything like that. Nothing too exciting here.
Look and Feel
The first thing you notice when you pick it up as that it’s just as heavy and substantial feeling as most full-sized mechanical keyboards tend to be these days. It’s a touch lighter than the old Realforce, probably owing to the slimmer dimensions – they’ve trimmed a lot of the fat from the old case design. Holding the keyboard at the edges, I noticed that there is a bit of give / movement where you can push the edges in and get a bit of a creak noise happening. Same deal with the front edge below the spacebar. It’s not something you are going to notice when the keyboard is flat on the desk but I thought it was worth noting. I think overall, the fit is probably more solid than the classic Realforce – on some of my classic Realforces, I can shift the entire top shell left or right probably 1 - 1.5mm which is something I’ve just come to accept as being a flaw in the old case design because of not using any screws to hold it shut.
The finishes on the keycaps and the case itself are good. The case does not have the matte-style finish like the NovaTouch which is good for me personally, because although the matte finish *looks* great, it does not cope well with oils from fingers / hands. The Realforce RGB case has a fine grainy finish which is, I would say, finer than a classic Realforce. The keycap texture on the RGB matches the case very nicely too. In the top-right, we have the LED plate which is a glossy finish on acrylic or glass (I can’t really tell) which has the modern REALFORCE logo, along with usual indicators for Caps, Scroll, and Num lock, and as a new addition, we have ‘Key Lock’ which becomes active with Fn + F12. The LED plate surrounds four additional keys; three for volume control, and one for controlling the actuation point setting on the fly.
The metal mounting plate underneath the keys is painted white. I think that this is just to accentuate the glowing effect of the RGB backlighting which some may like and others may not. On the bottom of the keyboard itself, we have cable-routing channels for left, right and centre exit points. There are four rubber feet in the corners for stability, and pop-down height adjustment feet.
Before I got the Realforce RGB, I was convinced that I would not like the keycap feel simply based on what I’d seen in pictures. I can honestly say that after using it for a week, the stock keycaps are in fact perfectly fine and useable. They feel very refined and not cheap at all. The only gripe I have is that the font is ugly and centred at the top of the keycap. The centring of the legends is excusable I suppose because of the way that that LEDs are positioned under the switch housing (at the top), they obviously wanted to get a high level of light coming through, but the font is just bad.
If you think that the RGB will feel like the NovaTouch, you are mistaken. I have been using a NovaTouch at home for a couple of months now as my daily driver, so I am familiar with its feel and sound. Within 30 minutes of using the Realforce RGB, I could tell that something was different, so I messaged Topre and I just mentioned the fact that it feels like the keys (especially the stabilised ones) felt smoother and quieter than what I was used to on the NovaTouch. At this point he revealed that Topre engineers did improve manufacturing tolerances just for the RGB – so there you have it. I swear I did not know this going into the review, so that’s some real talk there for ya boys and girls. The RGB is really a pleasure to type on. I do prefer TKL layout so hopefully Topre will produce one in the future.
Features
The Realforce RGB is the first keyboard with the ‘Realforce’ badge to depart from Topre’s legacy stem mounting method, instead adopting the seemingly de facto industry standard Cherry MX mount. As most of you know however, Topre have been producing MX mount sliders for Cooler Master’s NovaTouch TKL for quite a while now, so it’s not exactly new ground in that regard.
One thing that has changed is that the stabiliser setup. Instead of the strange semi-circles like the NovaTouch had, the RGB adopts a more traditional method as you will see in the pictures below. This might be a big part of the reason why the stabilised keycaps feel much smoother and less rattly than the NovaTouch.
Another thing that is different and new for Topre is that the switch housings are translucent to allow the RGB backlighting to shine through. This seems to go along with Topre’s apparent decision to go maximum-bling and impact with the white backplate to enhance the lighting effect. If they were going for understated then they might have added LED windows to the standard black switch housing, but that’s probably more complex to produce than simply choosing clear plastic – I don’t know.
Topre have done a decent job of their ‘REALFORCE RGB Software’ application. I won’t go into too much detail there – if you really want to read about it you can do so here.
The big point is that you *need* the software to change the key lock, backlighting and for adjusting the Actuation Point Changer (APC) setting *per key*. The dedicated APC key in the top right allows you to cycle the level across the whole keyboard (blue is 1.5mm, green is 2.2mm and red is 3.0mm), but doing it individually requires the software. As far as I can tell, they only have software for Windows – so that might be a bit of a problem if you use Mac as you may not be able to take advantage of all the features.
The Actuation Point Changer setting is a cool idea and I think it will appeal maybe to gamers. I tested it in a very ghetto way but it at least more-or-less proves that it works. Firstly, what I did was set two horizontally adjacent keys to 1.5mm and 2.2mm and then I pressed them both at the same time repeatedly by laying a sturdy piece of cardboard across both keys and pressing in the middle. Indeed, the key set to 1.5mm actuated before the 2.2mm key every time. And once again I tested 2.2mm vs 3.0mm and got the expected result of 2.2mm winning against 3.0mm. Finally, I did all three at once and confirmed the outcome of 1.5mm, 2.2mm, 3.0mm. I was not able to tell the difference between settings just with standard typing even at the 3.0mm setting. I’ve also tried the 1.5mm and 2.2mm settings in Overwatch and CS:GO and I personally can’t tell the difference either but I am not an avid gamer who is overly sensitive to such things.
Rounding out the rest of the keyboard, Topre have added media controls, shortcuts and a Caps / Ctrl toggle key along the F-keys, as well as functions on the Nav cluster for controlling some of the LED settings without opening the software. These can be accessed with Fn + <key> as you’d expect.
Conclusion
Some may not agree with the direction that Topre is going with the Realforce RGB, but the good news is that for those who love the classic Realforce (myself included), you can rest assured that the RGB does not spell the end of the road for the understated beast we all know and love. Topre have advised that they have no plans to discontinue the existing Realforce line. Topre are very obviously trying to make inroads into the competitive and lucrative gaming peripheral scene with the Realforce RGB, and you should probably not be upset about that.
We are very lucky to be spoilt for choice these days when it comes to mechanical keyboards and I have no doubt that the additional features on the Realforce RGB will tick all the boxes for a lot of people and be a compelling choice for many. Some of the technology might even make a welcome change to the classic Realforce line in the future. Indeed, that already appears to be the case with the introduction of the Realforce 108UH-ANLG in Japan just recently, a keyboard with an even finer level of actuation point control than the Realforce RGB.
Overall, I found the Realforce RGB to be an excellent keyboard with the signature Topre feel. Its shortcomings are only subjective aesthetic ones which (if it bothers you that much) could be corrected or improved with custom keycaps, of which a world of options are now available thanks to Topre’s adoption of the ubiquitous MX mount.
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