Introduction

Rosewill is a known brand name in the North American markets. Although they started as a small company mainly focused on marketing budget-friendly products, today they have a large selection of technology-related products, including products that have been designed with advanced users in mind. One such example is their mechanical keyboard series, which stands out from the many non-mechanical keyboards that they also offer. In this capsule review, we will look at the Apollo RK-9100 and the RGB80, two of their most recent mechanical keyboards. Are they worthy successors of the famed RK-9000? We are about to find out.

Rosewill Apollo RK-9100 - Key features and specifications

100% Cherry MX Blue Mechanical Key Switches

Custom Programmable Keyboard

Five Profiles with Quick Switch Keys

Up to 50 Marco keys

Individually LED Backlit Keys (Red or Blue LEDs, depending on the model)

Three Levels of Brightness Control: 0, 1, Breathing Mode

N-Key Rollover

Built in Headphone & Microphone Pass-Through Jacks

Two Built-in High-Speed USB 2.0 Ports

Detachable Wrist Rest for Maximum Support and Comfort

Gold-Plated Connectors to Reduce Latency

Includes Eight Orange Gaming Keys with Key Puller

Multimedia Keys with Gaming Mode

High Quality Braided Fiber Cable

Soft Rubberized Surface

Rosewill RGB80 - Key features and specifications

Customizable RGB LED Backlighting

Six Backlighting modes

Five Profiles with Quick Switch Keys

Multimedia Keys

Gaming Mode

6-Key or Full-N Key Rollover Modes

100% Mechanical Key Switches

512KB Onboard Memory

The lists above display some of the advantages of these two keyboards but reveal some of their weaknesses as well. For example, Rosewill makes clear mention of the Cherry MX switches of the RK-9100 but hardly mentions the mechanical switches in the features list of the RGB80 at all, hinting that the RGB80 is not using Cherry MX switches. We'll discuss the above in more detail on the following pages.