I have been hearing about analog control coming to the keyboard for years now, be it via Aimpad, Wooting, or even Roccat who teased this well before it made its way into a retail product. Roccat ended up being the first to market with some form of this implementation with their Isku+ Force FX, but it has not been an easy road to get there, or even since.

The Isku series of gaming keyboards from Roccat has been used membrane switches, and this keyboard is no exception. As such, this keyboard automatically gets categorized as something inferior to mechanical keyboards despite the fact that there remain many who simply prefer membrane switches. They were most likely your first keyboard, and they are most likely still in use in your office today. There are some inherent limitations here for sure, which is part of why this keyboard is priced in the $80-$100 range as opposed to the $150+ otherwise. But since we are on the matter of switches, let's talk about how Roccat achieved the pressure sensitivity in the first place. Given that membrane switches simply have to be bottomed out to actuate, Roccat used the principle of piezoelectricity to translate pressure applied into a analog-/force-response mode. This works well enough in games that support it, and the calibration options help too.

The problem is that "well enough" is based on there being zero competition in the market, until now. As I write this, my Wooting One sample is incoming, and having an entire keyboard (TKL) worth of analog response is going to be a lot handier here. For one, I will not have to worry about games that ask me to hit a button on a controller that I can't map to a key because I only have six to choose from. Secondly, using the travel of the key rather than force applied is on the opposite end of the spectrum of handling a keystroke, wherein you have to be delicate and calculating instead of brutal. While I can already think of how the former can be an issue, the latter is not perfect, especially since quick keystrokes for as many actions per minute are important factors in quite a few games today. The analog control here is also especially dependent on how well the game has been coded for it, so Roccat is dependent on a lot of external factors here.

At the same time, those factors Roccat is in control of internally are mostly well done. The integrated wrist rest, which personally is not a positive point for me given the keyboard's large form factor, works fairly well in conjunction with the unique Thumbster keys, which I really like. The massive bank of dedicated buttons for macro keys, macro recording, and media control - with application shortcuts - are also appreciated, as are the various indicator LEDs around the keyboard. But the backlighting itself is disappointing in both the absence of per-key lighting and the overall brightness of the LEDs.

Roccat has taken a safer route into the pressure sensitive/analog control keyboard market, and understandably so, but the weird mix of features and having only six pressure-sensitive keys makes the Isku+ Force FX seem more like a proof of concept than a commitment from Roccat. At $80, I still feel it offers enough to interest a lot of people, and I certainly had a good time with it.