I was quite elated when Cooler Master brought out the Novatouch TKL, having heard great things about Topre switches but never having easy accessibility to one. But despite the massive company behind the product, and possibly because it may have been just too early in a market that was hungry for RGB backlighting and software features over build quality, it just was not a success. The Cherry MX stem sliders on Topre switches were then a sought-after commodity in the keyboard enthusiast world, and seeing the demand for it, we had a few Asian companies decide to make their own capacitive switches. Nothing really came out of them in the western half of the globe owing to a localized market and them not wanting to venture out, so when i-Rocks approached me about their K70E capacitive keyboard that would be sold on Amazon.com in the USA and other markets, I simply had to say yes.

The K70E keyboard is a very interesting product to say the least, and this is before we even get to the switches. Out of the box, it features an acrylic top plate and side cover plate, which I have not seen on other company offerings thus far. This allows them to offer, as an optional purchase, accessories that make the most of the transparent top surface via decorative paper skins that can replace the stock plain white one at a reasonable cost. Other keyboard makers boast ease of modding due to replaceable metal top plates, but most do not actually follow through on it, so this was a nice change of pace. In addition, the replacement top plate itself has been used with another of i-Rocks' own keyboards, so that provides yet more customization if you fancy LEGO block structures. Making the keyboard available in black or white is also nice to see, and then there are the switches that also come in two offerings.

Be it the 45 or 60 gf actuation force switch, i-Rocks uses legitimate capacitive switches that feel nice to type on for me. Do not go in expecting tactile feedback similar to the Cherry MX Brown switch for this is a whole other beast with a conical spring and dome instead of a bump built into a mechanical switch. The use of dual PCBs means i-Rocks could use the space available for a decent capacitive sensor mechanism, which in turn allows for two different actuation distances to be used by the customer, and the second PCB boasts the lighting for the keyboard itself. Here, we get full 16.8 M RGB per-key backlighting, which ends up diffused quite a bit to where I see it as a plus and a negative depending on where you stand.

This is part of where i-Rocks came close, but did not get the cigar. The stock keycaps are good with thick ABS plastic and doubleshot injected primary legends, but some of the specific secondary legends are laser etched and, thus, not as durable. At the same time, they are not even etched deep enough to allow light to pass through, so it feels like a double whammy instead. The software driver is decent, but a lot more work is needed to close the gap to drivers by competitors in this price range. This is really where things are lacking in that i-Rocks simply does not have the brand recognition as most others, at least on this continent I am on, to where asking people to spend $150 can be hard. But if you are willing to look past brands, you will find the i-Rocks K70E to be a really good keyboard overall, one well worth a recommendation.