Royal Kludge RK61 60% Mechanical Keyboard Review

Human Made

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Penned by Cody D. Campbell

Cody has been a gamer ever since his family got a Sega Genesis when he was five-years-old. In addition to his love of narrative-focused RPGs and ho... Read more

Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

Royal Kludge has a product you might be interested in if you’re looking to buy a 60% mechanical gaming keyboard and want to spend as little money as possible. The RK61 is a wireless keyboard that comes in black or white and your choice of red, brown, or blue mechanical switches.
RK sent us one to review to let you know whether or not this budget keyboard is worth your consideration.

High Grounders will receive 5% off their purchase by using code “hgg” at checkout.

Royal Kludge RK61 Review Video

Prefer video instead? Our reviewer Cody unboxes and reviews the RK61.

Unboxing and Build Quality

The keyboard is displayed as soon as you open the box. Inside, you’ll find a users’ manual, a card with instructions for Bluetooth pairing, and a function command guide. There is also a keycap remover and the detachable USB Type-C cable under the cardboard housing.

The keyboard itself has a plastic frame that nonetheless feels very sturdy. One noticeable thing it doesn’t have is any feet to adjust the angle of the board.

The keycaps are made of double-shot ABS plastic which has very little flex but may develop a “shine” with continued use. The USB Type-C cable is a little short and is not braided. It also has a 1450mAh battery that promises 10 hours of wireless gameplay.

Bluetooth Connectivity

I found the instructions for pairing a little confusing. A QR code leads to a YouTube video that was presumably a pairing guide, but YouTube simply states that “the video is unavailable” when I try to access it.

It’s pretty simple once you know what you’re doing, though. Just turn on the power switch at the back and then hold down the Function (Fn) key, and either the Q, W, or E key depending on which of the keyboard’s three Bluetooth profiles you would like to pair your device to.

Lighting and Fn-ctionality

The FN key is also how you activate the second layer keys, which are printed in white on the face of the keycaps. This is how you use things like the arrow keys, though it’s worth noting that there are no media controls. This is also how you control the brightness and the keyboard’s different lighting modes.

The version sent to us has single-color backlighting, not RGB, but there are seventeen different lighting modes for you to play around with.

RK Brand Mechanical Switches

The mechanical switches are made by RK and are intended to be Cherry MX clones. They asked us what kind of switch I’d like to test, and I requested browns since they’re what I generally prefer.

I could definitely feel a slight difference in the RK switches, but not enough that anyone who wasn’t coming directly off Cherry MX switches would notice. They don’t feel any worse to me, just different. They are still quality mechanical switches that would serve as a major upgrade to anyone coming off a membrane keyboard.

Yes for Function, No for Features

This keyboard is hard to place because there isn’t anything like it that I could find in its price bracket. The closest things are the Redragon K530 Draconic 60% and the RGB version of this same keyboard. They have a few features that this board is lacking, but they both cost $10 more.

I enjoyed gaming on it. I found the keys comfortable and responsive, though I have to say that the latency was certainly more manageable in competitive games when using the USB Type-C cable rather than using it wirelessly.