Closer Examination

As the name suggests, the Royal Kludge S85 TKL is a tenkeyless form factor keyboard in a modified US ANSI layout—apologies to those who use other layouts/languages. There are 85 keys in total here, with room taken by the full-color LCD panel and the large knob in the top right corner, which in turn comes with a silver aluminium cover with a textured side layer for added grip. Royal Kludge has moved the Fn keys further to the left and cut down the gaps between them to accommodate all 12 in addition to a Print Screen key, meaning it is only Scroll Lock and Pause/Break that are missing on the base layer here. Everything else is where you expect them to be and also sized as they should be, meaning it is quite simple to get used to the keyboard as well as swap out keycaps should you so desire. The keyboard comes in a single colorway called "Horizon Blue," using a warm white keyboard case and matching keycaps with some dark blue and lighter blue keycaps to break up the monotony. I feel this color scheme is going to be divisive though, and the lack of any replacement keycaps to perhaps make this a two-tone set won't help either. The primary legends are placed in the top left corner of the keycaps, with secondary legends pushing them below where applicable. We also have some front-facing legends for keyboard-specific functions, which can be handy to help you identify some of the many pre-programmed functions on board. A Royal Kludge logo is seen in the bottom right corner facing the user, but this is otherwise a clean/retro design with average-sized bezels all around.


Turning the keyboard around, we see the S85 TKL uses a two-piece ABS plastic case with the top panel going for the off-white color we saw before and the bottom panel adopting the darker blue on the other keycaps. I appreciate that the keyboard feet are also in the same off-white, thus at least keeping the entire color scheme consistent and adding attention to details. We get two sets of keyboard feet at the top for a total of three elevation angles to choose from, and these feet come with rubberized bottoms to go with the four rubber pads in the corners. There's also a metal badge in the middle with the keyboard serial number and the usual certification info on it.


You might be wondering where the 2.4 GHz USB dongle is, and Royal Kludge has it stored in the top left corner on the side facing away from the user. There's a cutout with the pre-paired dongle poking through, meaning you always have it with you in the keyboard when needed, or stored away when not. A 3-way switch helps you choose the connectivity mode, with G referring to 2.4 GHz, B for Bluetooth, and the middle position for wired over USB Type-C where the port nearest to the switch is what you use to connect the keyboard and charge the battery inside. Royal Kludge also provides a spare Type-C port to use with any other USB peripheral, meaning there is a 2--port USB hub inside which isn't really mentioned in the product page for some reason. The provided cable works well enough, especially given the white color matches the keyboard decently, is shorter than usual at 5.5' in length, durable enough with a basic polyurethane sleeve, and terminates in a USB Type-A connector headed to your PC, where USB 3.2 Gen 1 is recommended for 5 V/1 A charging.


A look from the side shows the built-in elevation of the keyboard, which I would classify as medium-high profile and could benefit from a wrist rest if you are not used to touch typing with hands hovering over the keys at all times. The keycaps are non-floating owing to the nature of the case design, and the included keycap puller is useful in removing and/or replacing the keycaps as well as to clean the keyboard. The metal wire keycap puller is also nice in doing its job without the potential of scratching their sides as with plastic ring-style pullers. Royal Kludge is using the OEM keycap profile here, making it easy to swap over from most other mechanical keyboards to this one. The keycaps are made of thick PBT plastic (average wall thickness 1.41 mm) with doubleshot-injected legends on the top for durability and longevity alike. Unfortunately, these keycaps are mostly opaque, with only the light blue keycaps letting a tiny amount of light through—not enough to really be useful in the dark as we will soon see. As such, any lighting from the LEDs will only be visible between the keycaps and not through them.


The Royal Kludge S85 TKL keyboard comes with a single mechanical switch option in the form of the so-called Cloud switch, and I have no idea who manufactures these switches either. These come RK-branded and are installed in a south-facing configuration for increased keycap compatibility—good news for those who might want to use different keycaps if you prefer backlit legends. The keyboard uses a frosted plastic plate—I am not sure if this is polycarbonate, but feels like one anyway. The larger keycaps use plate mounted stabilizers which come lubed out of the box. Most of the stabilizers were lubed very well, although some could have done with a touch more lube. There's some foam underneath the space bar keycap, as well as between the plate and the PCB itself to further dampen keystrokes.


The switch remover tool is handy to remove the hot-swappable switches off the PCB where we see the use of a 5-pin mechanical switch socket with a switch pad too. There is also an SMD RGB LED associated with each switch to help with backlighting. The Cloud switch is a 5-pin linear feedback switch—no tactile or clicky switch option with this keyboard thus—that has a turquoise cross-point stem, a frosted light blue/white top housing, and an opaque light blue bottom housing. There is also an integrated lens to better diffuse light from the LED underneath, although this does mean we don't get surface mounted LED support.