Ruan Bronkhorst
Hows it going everybody welcome to we do tech and ooow do I have a fun product for you today.
Now wireless mechanical keyboards are nothing new to the market, but usually they are either expensive or have limited features like the lack of RGB, which I know is a dumb idea for a battery powered keyboard. But I still want it.
Price
But luckily the Redragon Vishnu is one keyboard that ticks all these boxes being mechanical, having RGB and also only costing around $70 on amazon and around R1000 here in south Africa.
Design
Getting into the design first you get a compact 87 key layout for a more tournament size keyboard. I know 60% all the rage nowadays but I personally prefer 87 because you only lose the numpad and still keep everything else including 10 macro keys and full media controls with a nice metal volume scroll wheel. Being wireless and smaller in size, it makes it really nice for an on the go travel keyboard or for use when gaming in front of the TV and don’t want all the annoying cables. As for the build quality it’s actually very good. It has a full metal inside frame which you can feel because its actually quite hefty for the size and then the rest is ABS plastic. Thanks to the metal frame it has little to no flex excet a tiny bit of plastic squeak.
Along with everything you also get a magnetic pal rest which I think is a very nice addition. It is plastic with some tiny triangle textures which isn’t that great but it adds a bit of grip. Also the same complaint that I have with many other keyboards is that its a bit too short, an extra 1cm would have made a huge difference to me. But again great inclusion and just nitpicking a bit.
RGB
Now as for the most important part of this entire keyboard, the RGB, which again is kinda stupid on a wireless keyboard as it will drain the battery a lot quicker. But again, I still want it!. So how is the RGB, well as you all have already seen it looks great. You have per key RGB backlighting plus the cool RGB lighting on the bottom sides of the keyboard. You are able to turn those off if you wanted to as its controlled separately. You have 18 different preset effects and are able to control the RGB either on the keyboard itself with the FN functions. Or you can use the software which gives you a tiny bit more control.
Software
Quick look at the software which I will also link to on our website post linked in description because it’s kinda hard to find. You have a few delay controls, can assign commands to all 10 G keys and then a bunch of RGB controls. Keep in mind this can only be done if the keyboard is plugged in with the type-c cable.
Windows Software : http://bit.ly/K596keyboard
Underneath
Flipping underneath you get 2 flip out feet with rubber grips and then addition 2 at the bottom and then 2 on the palm rest. Your also get the on and off switch as well as the magnetic caddy for your USB receiver.
Switches
As for switches the Vishnu uses Redragon branded outemu red linear switches which I don’t personally like that much as I want an actuation bump like on Blues or Browns, but they aren’t too bad overall. But if you don’t like them they are hot swappable so you can replace the reds with other outemu switches. You do actually get a few included to test which you prefer more but it’s only 2 of each color so 2 Blue, red, brown and black switches.
The reds were pretty decent to game on and I must say not having to worry about a wire does make it so much more enjoyable. If you watched my review on the crazy Asus PG65U 65” 4K 144hz TV then this was the keyboard that I used for the majority of my gaming session.
Keycaps
The keycaps are double shot ABS, and feel pretty standard but does have a more aggressive font on it. If that’s a problem you can always switch it out with some other cherry competitive keycaps.
Connectivity
As for connectivity you can either run it in wired mode with the included braided USB type C cable or in 2.4Ghz wireless mode with the USB receiver. Something to note is that the type port might be a bit thin for all type C cables so make sure you use a cable that will fit. But the main question is how does the wireless perform. Well not bad and definitely a lot better than Bluetooth. With line of sight it can still work well up to 6 meters and at around 10 meters it does start to drop a bit. As for latency, again its better than Bluetooth but I could notice a ever so slight delay. For most it will be unnoticeable but when I compared it my Logitech G613 I was able to spot it. But we are talking about a couple of milliseconds and I would still feel comfortable to play fast paced competitive games in wireless mode.
Battery
Lastly for battery life it was actually quite good especially with RGB on and that it only has a 2400mah battery. It lasted me around a week with average use. It is for mentioning that the RGB does go off by itself when not in use after about 45 seconds which does help save some battery power. I was not able to find a setting to adjust the sleep time unfortunately. Redragon claims up to 10 hours of battery life with RGB on, which looks to be mostly true. We didn’t time the charging duration but we guess it would take about two hours to charge to full.
Conclusion
So after using the keyboard for a couple of months now I have to say that $70 for this keyboard is a damn good price. It’s honestly a great keyboard. I really do enjoy the wireless aspect of the keyboard as it does keep your desk nice and neat without having to worry about cable management too much. Gaming on it was good, I can’t really complain about anything there. I have to say the Vishnu is probably one of my favorite keyboards as it is wireless, small in size and of course it has RGB. For the price this is for sure a steal and I really do look forward to some more great cheap wireless keyboards from Redragon.
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