The Asus ROG Azoth is the Taiwanese brand's take on custom mechanical keyboards. This high-end wireless keyboard comes with features such as a gasket mount design, pre-lubed switches and stabilisers, and three layers of sound dampening foam. There are also premium features like an OLED screen and PBT keycaps. Overall, it's a great wireless keyboard with excellent battery life. But you'll have to pay a steep price (around S$400) for this keyboard.

The ROG Azoth is a 75% keyboard that removes the numeric keypad for a more compact, laptop-like feel. Check out our mechanical keyboard guide if you want to learn more. This Asus keyboard is heavier than it looks (around 1.1kg), with a metal top cover and a plastic base. Build quality is solid with zero flex. The keyboard uses Asus' ROG NX mechanical switches. They are hot-swappable (mine uses the Red switches but Blue and Brown ones are available, too), and pre-lubed for smoother action. Asus says the Azoth has three layers of sound-dampening foam that change up the keyboard's acoustics, and make it less noisy. In my testing, the Azoth is definitely not as loud. But I'm not enough of a keyboard enthusiast to have an opinion on the typing sound profile. I would say that the Azoth doesn't sound unpleasant to me.

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The Azoth's PBT keycaps feel great, with just a hint of texture. The typing experience is consistently good. Wider keys like the spacebar are stable. The ROG NX Red switches are light, smooth and linear. I don't mind the gaming font, and the RGB LEDs shone through clearly enough. For those looking to get into mechanical keyboards as a hobby, the Azoth comes with a starter kit with tools such as keycap puller, switch opener, and lubricant. As a casual user, I was thankful that Asus has uploaded tutorial videos on disassembly and lubing the keyboard switches on the product page. Else I probably would have broken something while fiddling with the keyboard.

Besides these enthusiast features, the Azoth also has an OLED screen and control knob that lets you switch between keyboard settings like the RGB LED brightness, as well as multimedia controls like the volume. It's a nice feature — I especially like having the music visualiser when playing a song. The control knob works well enough, but I would have liked a round one. Minor grouse: The Caps Lock indicator look a bit too small on the OLED screen. In addition, you'll need Asus' Armoury Crate app for customisation and firmware updates. This app is clunky, bloated and often laggy — it's easily the weakest link. That being said, it's not a deal-breaker, and you probably won't be using it that often after the initial setup.

The Azoth's battery life is great for a wireless gaming keyboard with all the bells and whistles. I typically get around two weeks of usage before the keyboard starts conserving power by turning off the LEDs. You can use it while charging via its braided USB cable. The keyboard pairs up to three devices via Bluetooth, but I mainly use the included wireless dongle for its lower latency. It just wakes up from sleep much faster with the dongle. Overall, the Asus ROG Azoth is an excellent gaming keyboard that's packed with features, and performs up to expectations. But it's also pricey — it's available for around S$400 from Lazada, Shopee, and Amazon SG (cheapest, but imported from Japan).

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Review unit provided by Asus.