Closer Examination

The keyboard comes in a plastic wrap to help keep it pristine out of the box, but nothing really prepares you for how large it is unless you have used a few other Roccat keyboards before. The Isku+ Force FX has a whopping 123 individual keys, and if you can think of it, this keyboard has it. Macro keys? Yes. Media control keys? Indeed. Backlighting control keys? Sure. Taking up a massive area on your desk, and you better be sure you can accommodate it, Roccat unabashedly provides a lot on the hardware side before you get to see anything else. A part of this has to do with the integrated wrist rest, which is "extra large" as they call it, but also making it seem larger than life is the more aggressive design with sharp edges at angles all over the periphery of the keyboard. The unit I have here uses the US language layout, and as mentioned, Roccat is excellent about providing many different language layout options.


The bezels are on the larger side here, which is part of the reason we have such a large keyboard on hand. There are dedicated indicator LEDs in the top-right corner, under the Roccat Swarm logo, which is a weird place for a software-driver logo. There is also a brightness-control button closer to the center that adds to the extra keys here. Going inward, we have a bank of media-control buttons in the top center. In the top-left corner are six more indicator lights - five of these serve a very specific purpose related to the pressure-sensitive zone here while the sixth helps visually identify whether or not onboard macro recording is active. This is also why we have a dedicated macro-record button next to this LED. There is also the set of five dedicated macro keys to the left of the alphanumeric section, and, finally, the three so-called Thumbster keys at the bottom and by the wrist rest you'll use with your left thumb.

The wrist rest is extra large, integrated, and has a matte, slightly rough finish where your wrist would generally be placed, except for in the middle where Roccat used a glossy finish instead, along with another product logo. There is a third, larger company logo below this, and we are really at a point where the keyboard is turning into a billboard the customer is paying for instead. As far as keycaps go, single-legend placement is in the center for smaller-sized keycaps and the top or left for larger keycaps, depending on their orientation, with the font size being on the larger side of average for easier visibility and to allow more light through. The secondary legends are placed above the primary ones in the second row and below the primary ones on the Num Pad. The typeface itself is minimalist in general, although this is certainly designed to be a gamery-gamer keyboard first and foremost.


A sticker on the back, in the middle, has the company logo and product certification. There are also rubber pads all around the periphery here, including a long one at the bottom, which helps add some friction against the desk's surface. The keyboard itself weighs just under a kilogram due to the absence of a metal plate for some more weight, but there is minimal flex here because of the larger form factor and use of thicker plastic panels throughout. There are cable-routing cutouts on the back as well, with one cutout right next to where the cable comes out to ensure you can route it inward and manage it well in most directions. There are also two rubber feet that can be raised to elevate the keyboard, and these have rubber pads on the bottom as well, which will prevent scratches.


The keyboard's cable is non-detachable and comes out in the middle of the top, though there are routing cutouts as we just saw. It is average in length at 6.0 feet/1.8 meters long and terminates in a standard male USB Type-A connectors. USB 3.0 (3.1 Gen 1) is recommended so as to be well above the current draw requirements for all the RGB LEDs here, which should not be a concern for the intended audience today.


Roccat uses membrane switches in the Isku+ Force FX, and the keycap profile is thus more flat, although there is still a slanted row set relative to most mechanical keyboards following the OEM (Cherry MX) profile. The keycaps also have a concave surface at the top, and this helps guide one's fingertips towards the center more naturally while providing some support when typing. They are made out of thin ABS plastic (0.94 mm average wall thickness) with what appear to be pad-printed legends, so they are on par with the vast majority of stock keycaps and thus also disappoint in terms of longevity. ABS will develop a shine with finger oils sooner rather than later, and these legends will begin to wear down at the same time. Backlighting is going to be uniform for all primary and secondary legends alike if the LEDs are in the middle as they usually are with backlit membrane keyboards.


Membrane switches here as mentioned before, with a rubber dome that collapses on to a printed circuit board, which generates the keystroke. Roccat put an LED under the rubber dome of each key to provide backlighting from the middle, and the keys have a wall that is molded to fit the keycap perfectly. The larger keycaps have a simpler version of costar stabilizers with a wire angled in to provide some support during the downstroke and assist with the upstroke.


The keycaps on the Q/W/E/A/S/D keys are different from the rest in that they also have four horizontal lines on front, which also lets light pass through, and there is a ridge on the W keycap in addition to the F and J caps that usually have it to help with touch typing. These are the six keys that have pressure sensitivity, and unfortunately, this also means the rest of the keyboard is a bog-standard membrane keyboard in functionality.