Mechanical keyboards are popular with geeks because they can be customized with a variety of switches and keycaps. But have you ever seen a mechanical keyboard that can fold? Well, you will today because I’m going to tell you about the RK Royal Kludge RK925 folding mechanical keyboard. It’s certainly something different than what you will normally see when it comes to a mechanical keyboard.
The Royal Kludge RK925 is a foldable mechanical keyboard that can be either wired or wireless, depending on your preference. Don’t take the Kludge part of the name in a bad way here, as it’s not meant as if it’s an ill-assorted collection of parts assembled to fulfill a particular purpose.
https://www.seerofsouls.com/wp-content/themes/groovy/assets/images/transparent.gifAs you can see it’s definitely a foldable keyboard. But what’s different about the Royal Kludge RK925 it folds horizontally instead of vertically like most foldable keyboards you see will do. This truly sets it apart right from the start in my opinion.
Unfortunately once it’s folded in half, there is no locking mechanism or anything similar to keep it folder. You have to rely on the way you store it in your bag or whatever. There is however a velvet pouch for the folded keyboard to fit in, so that does keep it from coming unfolded if you store it in that.
Another thing that most gamers, among others, will appreciate about the RK925 is that it’s what they call a 60% keyboard with only 68 mechanical backlit keys.
Along the top edge of the Royal Kludge RK925 is where you will find the power switch, the USB-C charging/connectivity port and the foldout phone/tablet holder if you wish to use it with a mobile device. One neat thing is, the RK925 can be paired with up to 3 different devices using Bluetooth 5.1.
The foldout phone/tablet holder is very sturdy and has no issues at all. It will even work with cases, depending on their thickness of course. I personally used it with an iPhone 12 Pro and a Pixel 6 Pro while on vacation in Las Vegas.
This keyboard uses low profile white switches that have a 12mm height and a 1.4mm distance to actuation.
The double shot ABS keycaps have a very shallow concave shape but they are full-size keys allowing typing to feel roomy and comfortable. Being a mechanical keyboard, typing on it results in a pleasant clickity clackity. I found the volume of the clicking and clacking to be fine for my ears but if you work in a quiet office, you might bother others.
The backlight is bright but not too bright. It can be completely turned off or you can switch it to a ‘breathing’ mode where it will fade in and out.
It has a 600mAh battery that will give you up to 200 hours of nonstop typing with the backlight off and is fully recharged in 2-3 hours.
Note that this keyboard seems to automatically time out and go into power savings mode after about a minute. So if you come back to your desk and start typing, you might lose a stroke or two before you notice.
One thing to note is that the RK925 does not include a Mac mode so using it with a Macbook Pro or something similar works, but you won’t be able to do the special key combos using the OPTION and CMD keys unfortunately. If you can live without those special key combos, then using it with a Macbook or anything similar should work without any other issues.
Discount Code
Thanks to the awesome folks over at Royal Kludge for allowing me to review this product and others that they have sent over in the past. They have also provided me with a special URL that anyone can use to save a total of 10% off of your entire purchase across their site. So if you’re interested in purchasing the RK Royal Kludge RK925 folding mechanical keyboard, or any of their products, you can enter code DECRYPTED to Save 10% On Your Entire Order.
Final Thoughts
It’s nice to see a company that makes normal every day products come up with something different and do it differently than you would expect. The Royal Kludge RK925 does exactly that while maintaining the ability to work as expected. It’s very well made, sturdy, solid, portable and affordable.
If you’re looking for or in the need of a keyboard you can easily take with you but not have all the bulkiness of a regular keyboard, then this is certainly one product you should take a look at. Throw in that the price is only $79.99 if you buy directly from RK Royal Kludge.
@Cliff I have a Royal Kludge keyboard that sounds and feels very nice and is good to type at. But there’s a big but. Wireless connectivity is ridiculously bad, both with 2,4 GHz and Bluetooth. It is connected to the desktop directly under the desk and it has very very frequent misses. Sometimes it seems better with Bluetooth. But I lots of errors nonetheless. If this isn’t fixed, I would strongly advise against buying any RK keyboards. Unless you certainly always use cable.
@padraig@Cliff Interesting to hear this. Is this issue just with the one keyboard you have or have you had others from them that have the same issue?
I've never run into this issue, but I mainly use my keyboards wired and not wireless or BT as that's just something I've always done and had better experiences.
@cliffwade I only have the RK84 and I saw complaints about poor wireless performance online, but thought how bad could it be. But sadly it is as frustrating as people said.
When there is nothing physically in the way or it is very close it works better. But sometimes moving my leg under the table makes it worse.
It’s a bummer, because I specifically bought it to have a wireless experience, as I don’t play games on that PC. And apart from that it is a nice keyboard.
@cliffwade I haven’t contacted them actually. But from what I’ve read online it’s nothing that can be fixed, because the 2,4 GHz chip in the keyboard itself is very weak. I just looked for some solutions. Apparently switching to a USB 2 port instead of 3 worked for some.
Otherwise I might have to find a way to get the receiver on top of the desk.
I didn’t have to do much on that pc for a while, but now I’m writing more again, so I noticed it a lot more.
@padraig I'll reach out to my contact, as I work closely with them on a lot of review stuff and actually moderate the RedragonShop Discord server. They have sent me a couple of RK products over the past year or so. Maybe I can find out if they know of anything that can help fix it or any solutions of some kind.
@Cliff I like it. Admittedly I'm immediately thinking that should come with some sort of protective case/sleeve since the keys are exposed when folded.
@andrew@Cliff That's definitely something that foldable keyboards like this need. I'm not really sure why RK didn't think to provide something along those lines.
It did come with a cloth bag for carrying it around, but it provides absolutely no protection other than from dust.
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