C98 96% Hall Effect Magnetic Switch Keyboard

Strong Budget Hall Effect Option With Some Sound Trade-Offs

The Royal Kludge C98 HE is a solid budget entry into the hall effect keyboard space. At around $90 for an 1800-layout hall effect board, it offers a lot of functionality for the price, especially if you are looking for something inexpensive with rapid trigger-style gaming features and a decent web-based driver. The ABS case construction feels good for the price, and the aluminum plate makes sense here because it helps keep everything properly aligned for the magnetic sensors to perform consistently. The board also supports most Wooting-compatible magnetic switches, which is a nice bonus if you want to experiment or upgrade later. That said, the stock switches are not my favorite. They remind me a lot of the older Akko Glare switches from Akko’s early hall effect boards, right down to the color and the sound profile. They work well, but they do not sound especially good, and the board itself has a somewhat hollow tone out of the box. This is not the keyboard I would pick if sound is your top priority. But as a budget hall effect keyboard, the C98 HE makes a lot of sense. You get an 1800 layout, hall effect functionality, a usable web driver, decent build quality, and future switch compatibility at a very approachable price. It is not perfect, but for the money, it is a genuinely compelling option.

Attention au marquage inversé des touches AZERTY !

Proposer un clavier mécanique AZERTY est réservé à des grandes marques avec des tarifs bien plus élevés. Je suis très satisfait de la frappe et du son de ce clavier, qui ne dérange pas trop mes voisins de bureau. En revanche son défaut est que toutes les touches spéciales sont marquées à l'inverse de la logique AZERTY : Les chiffres sont marqués en bas de touches alors qu'on utilise MAJ pour les activer. Le + est marqué en bas de la touche. Le "." est en bas alors qu'on utilise MAJ... Et ce n'est pas une erreur de CAPSLOCK, c'est simplement le marquage des touches qui est 100% inversé. (La personne qui a validé ça chez RK en mode FR AZERTY avait peut-être oublié VERRMAJ pour le coup!) Pour un utilisateur qui regarde rarement ses doigts comme moi, ça ne pose pas trop de problème, mais pour un débutant, le marquage inversé peut être assez gênant.

Bad Keycaps

I bought the "ISO ES" version because I live in the Dominican Republic and we speak Spanish here. But there is a problem, the keycaps are printed incorrectly, for example, in the case of the , and the ; When I use it without the shift it correctly marks a , but in the keycap the comma is above the ; and not the other way around, this happens with all the keys that have a double function, the character that should be at the top is at the bottom and vice versa and the original objective of requesting the "ISO ES" is lost, which was to have each character in its place.