Republic of Gamers has long been synonymous with quality. Their long history of producing an array of gamer gear, peripherals and computers makes them a premium developer of gaming products. The new M701 Azoth wireless gaming keyboard faithfully follows this trend of high-quality keyboards. Packed to the brim with features and connectivity options, the ROG Azoth goes a step further by offering a fully customizable keyboard experience.
Each individual key is hot-swappable and the board itself is designed and built from the ground up to offer the most superb tactile experience for the gamer. The ROG M701 also comes with a DIY Switch Lube kit to help maintain a consistent experience. With all this in one package, the Azoth attempts to bridge the gap between the gamer and the keyboard customizer. Sound too good to be true? Grab that coffee, kick back and find out in our review of the ROG Azoth Wireless Keyboard.
Specifications
- Current Price: USD $249.99 (Amazon)
- Connectivity: USB 2.0 (2 Metere TypeC to TypeA braided cable), Bluetooth 5.1, RF 2.4GHz
- Lighting: RGB Per Keys
- Aura Sync: Yes
- Anti-Ghosting: N Key Rollover
- Macro Keys: All Keys Programmable
- Poll Rating: 1000 Hz (1-millisecond refresh)
- Keys: Hot swappable ROG NX mechanical switches (ROG NX Browns Reviewed)
- Key Caps: PBT doubleshot keycaps
- Additional Features: 2inch OLED mini Display, Onboard knob and button controller
- Dimensions: 326 x 136 x 40 mm
Built ROG Tough
The ROG Azoth is an incredibly well-built keyboard. The board provides a three-layer system to provide the most comfortable and responsive experience I’ve found in a keyboard. Small silicone gaskets provide a cushioned experience while typing and gaming. I found that this additional detail really does impact the feel and comfort of the keystrokes. It provides a uniquely cushioned experience while typing that isn’t one I’m accustomed to on mechanical keyboards.
Under this is a 3.5mm thick silicon pad that dampens the noise of the NX brown switches (more on those later). While the NX Browns do provide a wonderfully tactile and audible clicking experience while typing, the silicon pad nonetheless helps contain the noise associated with an NX brown key.
Continuing to drill down into the design, the Azoth also includes another layer. This is comprised of PORON foam, a microcellular urethane pad, that is resistant to compression and high energy absorption. Essentially it's the “Captain America shield” of foams and helps dissipate the noise and force produced by constantly mashing keys on the keyboard.
Supporting the PORON foams is another layer of silicone foam that creates a completely smooth and level surface for the previous layers to rest. This is the final line of audio dampening and comfort for the Azoth. This whole system is encased in a sleek metal shell giving the M701 a very solid feel. In fact, it is the heaviest keyboard I’ve used. This isn’t a complaint though as it feels tough and durable to use and as someone who has a tendency to crush keyboards and mice with use, I’m thankful for how tough this design feels.
The Azoth also includes a 2-inch customizable OLED display that can provide details about system operations, control multimedia functions, be used to adjust audio and manage some of the keyboard functions. While at first, I assumed this to be a gimmick, it comes with a small knob and button controller that actually makes it quite handy to use. It essentially creates a shortcut menu for some base functions saving the work of loading up the Armory Crate Software.
For connections, you’ll find that the Azoth comes ready to get you connected wirelessly with ROG’s SpeedNova 2.4GHz RF as well as the latest in Bluetooth wireless tech. To assist in charging and offering a third mode of connection, the M701 also comes with a braided USB-C to USB-A cable. Connecting wirelessly is a simple and straightforward process on both Mac and PC. In fact, I was quite impressed that the Azoth also supports a Mac and PC mode.
This was a minor feature that creates a huge quality of life upgrade for those that run both a mac and PC at home. I’ve been able to remove the second keyboard and mouse from my setup as I often connect my Mac to one of my monitors to work from home during the day. It's a small detail that really helps elevate the ROG Azoth above the competition.
The ROG Azoth is hands down the most durable and comfortable keyboard I’ve reviewed to date. It looks great, feels great and offers an exceptionally smooth typing experience. Its 75% profile also means that its smaller profile is ideal for setups that are tight on the surface area. While much of the experience can be contributed to the above features, there is more to the Azoth than a three-layered comfort system and solid design.
Bringing the DIY Experience to The Gamer
While the Azoth is an exceptionally well-built and designed board, ROG didn’t stop there. The team has also offered a hot-swappable switch system and even provides a key lubing kit for the DIY’ers in the crowd. This is my first experience with keyboard customizing and I actually had to do some reading and youtube searching to see what all the fuss was about. After watching a few videos and seeing all that's out there for customization options I have to say that I’m thankful for the system ROG has created.
The Azoth provides a DIY experience for those that have no idea what they are doing. It’s incredibly easy to swap out keys with the provided tools allowing you to switch from an NX brown tactile typing experience to an NX Red or NX Blue experience on the fly. It was a bit intimidating initially to be yanking keys out of the board but the design of the cavity that houses each individual key makes it easy to slide keys in and out of their slot. Additionally, there is a satisfying clicking sound that occurs when the key is pushed into place assuring you that you’ve completed the task.
While the NX Brown Keys do come pre-lubed to help with that smooth typing experience, ROG also provides a cleaning and lubing kit to help you keep your keys in pristine working condition. Again this system is designed for people not accustomed to the DIY keyboard experience. The whole kit works great and offers gamers that next level of customization to their keys and board.
Speaking of keys I would be remiss if I didn’t highlight the NX Brown keys themselves. These mechanical switches have a 2mm actuation point while still providing a more tactile force response to your keystroke. The result is an exceptionally satisfying keystroke experience that provides accuracy with every click of a key.
Covering the NX Browns are PBT double-shot keycaps. Polybutylene Terephthalate is the most durable plastic used in keyboard manufacturing and provides the most durable keycap experience on the market. When we refer to double-shot keycaps it's actually a reference to how the keycap is produced. A traditional keycap is a single piece of plastic into a mold to create the keycap. This means that the legend and keycap itself all reside within the same layer of plastic. While this functionally works fine a double shot method takes it one step further by injecting the PBT into two separate moulds. This in turn means that your legend and the outer casing reside in different pieces of plastic creating a more durable keycap with a clearer legend.
The Azoth keys provide a 100% anti-ghosting and N-key rollover experience for gamers as well. During my playtests I found the M701 to register every keystroke without hesitation. This is accomplished by the board scanning each individual key separately. The practical application is that every key could be pressed simultaneously and each key is registered. For myself, someone who is frequently running and gunning his way through FPS titles, it translates into the most responsive gaming experience I’ve played. The board responded instantly to every command I sent it with no noticeable latency in all three connection modes.
The NX Browns feel great to use and remind me a lot of the Cherry Browns on a couple of the other boards I’ve reviewed. However, the difference comes in the way the keys sit and interact with the board itself. The aforementioned layers of foam and padding combined with the finely tuned NX Browns really do provide the smoothest keyboard experience I’ve had in recent years.
Perfect in Every Way… Except
The ROG Azoth is physically the nicest keyboard I’ve worked with to date. In fact, I have no complaints about the keyboard itself. It wins the keyboard game hands down. The Armoury Crate Software, on the other hand, leaves something to be desired. The Armoury Crate allows you to easily control every aspect of your ROG peripherals. In the case of the keyboard, this means everything from key functions, macro management, profile saves, power and OLED customization are all handled here. You can even save up to six individual profiles that once sent to the board can be hot-swapped on the fly from the board itself.
I was actually pretty happy with the look and layout of Armoury Crate. It's fairly intuitive to use on the surface and offers a host of control and features to play with and customize. Even firmware updates can be handled here and are a simple one-click solution. All of the RGB options are here as you would expect and the Azoth syncs up nicely with ROG’s Aura Creator lighting effects software easily.
However, I have had a consistent issue with pushing updates to the Azoth via Armoury Crate. More than once I’ve had to kill the software and restart it to get changes to push through to the board. It's also slow to pull up individual peripheral details. When selecting the Azoth (or any other ROG peripheral I currently have plugged in) Armoury Crate would hang, in some cases for 6-7 seconds, before pulling up the device and its settings.
Additionally, while I could see changes I was making in real-time, there was an odd issue where once I was done customizing it wouldn’t actually push the changes to the keyboard. This meant it would default to whatever I had it set to before making changes. Thankfully a quick restart of the software always resolved the issue and profiles, once saved to the board, never lost their settings. I will admit that it could be an issue with my system but it is something that I wanted to note here. While it definitely doesn’t take away from the pure awesomeness of the Azoth design and implementation, it does put a little dampener on the overall experience.
The only other area I want to note is in regards to battery life. While I couldn’t find the exact specs for the battery size and life, ROG does state on their website that the keyboard is good for up to 2000 hours on a charge. The caveat is that this is accomplished only if RGB and the OLED display are turned off. While that is an impressive amount of time it doesn’t really leverage all the Azoth has to offer. In my testing, while running both RGB and the OLED display, I could get a few days of continuous use (you can customize how long the board is idle before engaging sleep mode) before plugging it into the USB C port. These settings can be adjusted to prolong battery life as well meaning there is some room to tweak the settings to fit your needs.
Final Thoughts
The ROG Azoth Wireless Gaming Keyboard is hands down the best board I’ve worked with to date. Everything from design to quality is amazing. The options for easy customizing along with quality parts make it a great board for gamers who are looking to upgrade their keyboard experience. Some small issues with the software keep it from being the perfect board but even there I find it hard to count it against this exceptional keyboard. Currently priced at $249.99 USD on Amazon, the ROG Azoth is my new gold standard for what to expect from a gaming keyboard.
The product described in this article was provided by the manufacturer for evaluation purposes.
