Asus ROG Azoth review: Good keyboard, better pack

Updated May 26, 2023

Asus is breaking into the enthusiast keyboard market with a new hot-swappable mechanical gaming keyboard, the ROG Azoth (available at Amazon for $209.99) . While not their first hot-swappable board, it’s a 75% wireless gaming keyboard that sets itself apart from competitors like the Corsair K70 Pro Mini Wireless and SteelSeries Apex 9 TKL with the addition of a 2-inch OLED screen, switch opener and lubrication station, and excellent battery life. It’s an impressive, snappy gaming keyboard with plenty of added value, but is it worth $250 when much more affordable alternatives exist?

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About the Asus ROG Azoth

Should you buy the Asus ROG Azoth?

Related content

Surprisingly useful screen

Added enthusiast pack-ins

Great battery life

Expensive

Finnicky media rocker

Cramped layout

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The switches are pre-lubed and swappable.

Here are the specs of the keyboard we reviewed:

The ROG Azoth uses the same footprint as a typical 75% keyboard and features 80 keys. Our unit came configured with 3-pin ROG NX Red mechanical switches, which have a lower actuation point than Cherry MX Red switches. ROG NX switches are slightly smaller than MX-style switches, but both fit in the same socket and use the same keycaps.

Included in the box is a switch opener that works with NX and MX switches and a switch lubing station that includes a brush, Krytox lubricant, switch holder, and three extra NX switches.

The ROG Azoth sets itself apart with its 2-inch black-and-white OLED screen that can display animations, battery level, caps lock status, lighting effects, and system information like CPU and GPU temperatures. Asus promises up to 2,000 hours of battery life over 2.4GHz wireless when the RGB lighting and OLED screen are turned off.

True to its namesake, the Asus ROG Azoth does everything. (Azoth was a universal alchemical reagent supposedly found in all other elements.) It’s Mac-compatible, appropriately sized for gaming and most productivity work, features ample connectivity options, two layers of pre-installed foam and a layer of silicone padding to improve the sound, and the ability to record and playback macros on the fly. It even has a dedicated “stealth mode” button that instantly brings up the desktop.

The Azoth feels snappy and responsive, and it never held me back while gaming. Playing Overwatch 2, Fortnite, Horizon Zero Dawn or any other fast-paced game was smooth. I didn’t notice the 0.2mm difference in actuation between Asus’s ROG NX switches and Cherry’s MX Reds, or the Gateron Milky Yellow switches in my everyday keyboard.

The OLED screen is more useful than you’d think. Having a battery indicator right on the board is helpful (though turning the screen off is best if you want maximum battery life). You can also change what the multimedia rocker does at the press of a button, with the screen displaying the contextual action of the rocker.

The keyboard comes with a kit to help you lube up and replace the switches.

Once you install Asus’s Armoury Crate, you can set your own custom animations, use the screen as a music visualizer, have it display the date and time, or even show CPU and GPU temperatures simultaneously. It’s a nice feature in theory, but my CPU or GPU temperature readouts refused to change, even when gaming. The date and time option wouldn’t update without Armoury Crate installed.

The rocker mechanism isn’t my favorite. I often found myself pressing it by accident, muting what I was watching while trying to increase or decrease the volume too quickly. But the ROG Azoth’s biggest Achilles’ heel is that I frequently found myself making typos when writing, likely due to the wider keycap tops and increased sensitivity.

After using the keyboard for more than a week, I was only able to get my Monkeytype results up to 90 words per minute with 98% accuracy. I started at 77 WPM with 90% accuracy on the ROG Azoth, but I can normally hit 100 WPM. Unlike some other 75% keyboards, the F row on the ROG Azoth is unbroken as Asus had to cram the keys together to fit the screen on the top right-hand corner, making it more difficult to hit them without looking.

Finally, Asus includes a switch opening and lubrication kit that’s perfect for DIY beginners. While you can pick up a similar bundle for $20 to $30, it’s still a nice addition. Although Asus claims the ROG Azoth comes with pre-lubed switches, the ones I opened were bone dry. I lubed the left half of the keyboard’s switches and found them to sound better and depress more smoothly.

It's a serviceable mid-tier keyboard.

The Asus ROG Azoth isn’t a bad keyboard. It can do almost anything well enough, works fine with Windows and Mac, and has ample battery life and Bluetooth capabilities. But for $250, it’s not quite there.

The OLED screen is a neat idea that’s held back by the software, and Asus’s ROG NX switches are good, but if you really want to get into the mechanical keyboard scene, it’s easy enough to build your own for less money.

There are pre-built wireless gaming keyboards that offer better value than the Azoth. Although smaller, the Corsair K70 Pro Mini Wireless is uniformly excellent and has dropped to only $130 as of late, down from $180. If you want to stick with Asus, the Asus ROG Claymore II, a wireless 80% keyboard that includes a detachable numpad and wrist rest, as well as passthrough charging for your other desktop devices, might be a better option. It costs about $20 less than the ROG Azoth, but it doesn’t use hot-swappable switches and lacks Bluetooth.

The Asus ROG Azoth includes an OLED screen and a switch lubing kit.

Buy the Asus ROG Azoth

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Jonathan Hilburg

Electronics Editor

Jonathan is an Electronics Editor for Reviewed specializing in gaming gear and has experience with everything from controllers to benchmarking the latest GPUs. He was previously the Web Editor at The Architect's Newspaper.

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