Closer Examination

More plastic wrap, this time around the keyboard itself. Creative is making sure you get the product clean and without a speck of dust. The Vanguard K08 resembles a love child of the Corsair K95 Platinum and Das Keyboard 4 Professional at first glace, but there are subtle differences from either to where it can carve out its own identity. Comparisons aside, the Vanguard K08 is a full-size keyboard that is currently available in ANSI layout and all black only. There are media buttons and a volume scroll wheel in the top right, with a Windows lock button there as well to confine all extra buttons to a single area. One of these is a dedicated button to pull up the software driver, Sound Blaster Connect, which is an interesting idea. I found myself using it for the sake of the review, but not thereafter. It was far away enough to prevent accidental hits, however. There are also five dedicated macro buttons on the left for those who find such buttons useful.

What I am personally not a fan of, however, are the keycap legends. They are relatively tiny, and the primary legends are right in the middle on top of the keycaps, which has the light from underneath backlight them directly. This means any secondary legends are off-centered, either above or below, and overall, this leaves a lot of empty space on the keycaps. The font too appears a confused mix of gamery and professional alike, with each letter thicker than the size should suggest. Ultimately, these choices make the legends seem crowded in what is otherwise a large keyboard with average-sized bezels all over it too.


On the back is a textured hard plastic bottom with a lot of rubber pads to prevent the keyboard from sliding on your desk. There are two feet at the top - large but thin and without any rubber pads on them, which feels like an oversight considering the amount of rubber used elsewhere. The keyboard has a thick, non-detachable cable with a braiding and two male USB Type-A connectors at the other end. Both are marked to make sure you know which is for the keyboard and which is the USB pass-through port. The USB pass-through port is well hidden on the keyboard and can be found inside the top-left corner's edge. This is bad positioning, however, as you would now have to route a connected device at an angle unless you are left handed and use it for a mouse. The pass-through port is USB 2.0, and the keyboard itself will work with a USB 2.0 port as well, although USB 3.0 is recommended for full power to the RGB LEDs.


As noted earlier, the wrist rest simply clips into place using two plastic clips. Such a design works fine when executed well, but this is not the case here. The openings the clips go into are larger than necessary and thus, the wrist rest is prone to fall out. Any real pressure around the area of contact and the wrist rest simply clips off, although it will stay in place if you place your wrists on to its lower half.


Despite the use of non-Cherry MX style switches and keycaps, the Vanguard K08 keycaps have a Cherry OEM profile, down to how each individual row is sculpted. The keycaps themselves are reasonably thick ABS (wall thickness 1.18 mm on average) and have laser-etched legends. The PRE switches here from OMRON are nearly identical to the Logitech Romer-G switches from OMRON and also have a central light "pillar" through which the RGB LEDs shine. As such, centrally located legends get backlit the most uniformly, which works well for most of the primary legends on the keyboard here. The secondary legends and any other legends located below will still be backlit, but not as strongly.

The bottom row is not standard; however, this is of no real consequence as there are no compatible keycap sets for these OMRON switches that I know of. During testing, I did not notice the ABS developing any shine, which at least make these better than some of the really bad stock keycaps I have seen. The legends too have not exhibited any wear and tear so far, but it is only a matter of time before they do.


Here is a better look at the PRE switches themselves. A white stem, if you will, with a light pillar in the center, which has four indentations over which the keycap fits in place. While similar to the Cherry MX Brown switches as far as being tactile and actuating at 45 cN goes, these are really a whole different beast. You will either like them or you will not. I do not see a lot of middle ground here for these or the equivalent Romer-G switches.