Performance

Ghosting, or the lack thereof, is handled differently with the ROCCAT Horde AIMO. You do not have NKRO here, but ROCCAT does say that there is full anti-ghosting in the so-called gaming section comprised of 34 keys marked in blue in the image above. There is native 6KRO everywhere else, and I don't have any issues personally with this. Switch Hitter also confirmed no chatter with these keys.


When first connected, the keyboard lights up with the AIMO lighting system activated, which is extremely hard to demonstrate without also capturing the content on your monitor. As it is, I am not set up for this, and it is made worse by the low brightness of the light passing through the keycaps. For what it is worth, the first image above managed to respond well to a test image of a red-orange color palette, so props to ROCCAT for that. There is onboard control to also choose full keyboard lighting with a select few color options, but the driver does of course open up a lot more options, as seen on the previous page. I set all the keys to white to test color fidelity, and that was quite true to color and pleasing. Similarly, having different colors set to the various zones also shows minimal color bleeding with the light coming from the center and not the top of the switches as with most mechanical keyboards.

Here are three videos showing some of the options available via applying tweaks over Swarm's key illumination page beyond AIMO. As it is, the combination of the LED hardware and Membranical switch design with the island layout and rubber domes results in an underwhelming light show in even moderately lit rooms, and despite what ROCCAT says, I still don't think these Membranical switches should have been used for the first proof-of-concept keyboard for AIMO. Having seen what the Kone AIMO and Khan AIMO can do, the Horde AIMO does not come off fitting in the trio if backlighting is a strong factor in your decision making.


What is not underwhelming, however, and quite impressive instead is the functionality ROCCAT built into that wheel in the top-right corner. It would have been very easy to default assign it as a volume wheel and call it a day, but instead, it serves multiple purposes in combination with the keys to the left. Out of the box, that wheel is a vertical scroll wheel that comes in very handy even as I write this very review. Hit the volume button and it is now a volume wheel. Want some onboard lighting options? Sure, hit that button and you can now switch between some preset backlighting effects stored on the keyboard. You can even assign it to change the DPI of a ROCCAT mouse and have it work as a hotkey you can configure in Swarm. This is in many ways similar to what Logitech did with the CRAFT, but more general and not as specialized. As it is, the tuning wheel is my favorite feature on the Horde AIMO, and I really want to see this come to other ROCCAT keyboards sooner than later.

The rest of the keyboard is also generally impressive when it comes to functionality. I appreciate the macro key column being shorter than the others, which not only helps identify them when touch typing but also does help actuate macros sooner simply by way of a shorter actuation distance, and thus also time if all other things are equal. Key assignment is as good as it has been with Swarm, and ROCCAT's Easy-Shift[+] allows for a second layer of functionality that can be accessed even outside of the keyboard if you have, say, a compatible ROCCAT mouse. The more subtle contouring on the keycap profile is something people will get used to quickly, though I can definitely see some not preferring it at all. But it will also allow for an easier time with getting used to a different layout—Dvorak instead of QWERTY, for example—via key assignment and manually switching over keycaps.


As always, the sound of a keyboard is based on more than just the switch type. So when comparing sound clips, consider the keyboard as a whole. In this case, I have provided above an example sound clip of me typing on the ROCCAT Horde AIMO sample at ~85 WPM. For context, you can find sound clips from other keyboards here, including those with tactile switches. I did bottom out given the linear nature of the switch, although I did go about it again after some practice and noticed I was able to actuate the keystroke before bottoming out, which is what ROCCAT had claimed with these Membranical switches. As it is, the switches are on the quiet side, and the plastic case helps dampen it further to where the Horde AIMO is a relatively silent keyboard in operation. Using the switches was definitely interesting—the stem and so-called island layout with the bump and shorter rubber dome all contribute to a switch that does not feel like a membrane, or any mechanical switch. For what it is worth, it felt close to the i-Rocks capacitive switch if it had a bump similar to the Cherry MX Brown. This really is something you need to try in person before committing to it.