Asus Strix Claw and Strix Tactic Pro Reviews

Asus Strix Tactic Pro Review

Accompanying the Tactic Pro is a keycap removal tool, and four spare orange keys. These can be used to replace any standard size key, with the obvious choices being the WASD and arrow keys. However, a few more practical features are excluded – there is no wrist rest supplied and no pass-through ports of any sort.


Cherry MX keys lie behind every key except the media and thumb-activated macro ones. The ABS plastic keycaps are fixed fairly securely in place, and there's not much to say about the typing experience beyond that it's the standard, reliable one you'd expect from a board based on Cherry MX switches. The Red switches are nice and light, and feel fast and responsive. They're not as loud as Blues, for exampe, but there is a tendency to bottom out on them because of the lightness and lack of tactile feedback, which produces its own noise. Still, most people have their preference, so it's great that Asus gives you a choice of four.


The software is the same as used with the Claw, but it's pretty basic for the keyboard – you have one screen for key assignments and one for macro editing, which takes the exact same format as with the Claw. You also again have the choice of hardware mode and software mode, though the 4MB of internal memory allows for storing up to three profiles directly on the Tactic Pro, as opposed to just one with the Claw. Your profiles are switched between using the FN key and the Print Screen, Scroll Lock and Pause/Break keys, or you can link them to applications (software mode only).


Key customisation is frankly more limited that we were expecting. They can only be set to keyboard/mouse functions, macros and program launching, though this does still cover most bases. Annoyingly, you can't set any of the macro keys to switch profiles – these are tied to the three aforementioned ones only.

Conclusion

The Strix Tactic Pro is priced about right for a keyboard that is both mechanical and laden with this many macro keys. Other options include the Vengeance K95 from Corsair, though this is more expensive thanks to its premium build quality, wrist-rest and pass-through port. You could also consider the similarly priced Tesoro Lobera Supreme G5NFL – it doesn't have as many dedicated macro keys, but it keeps the thumb-activated ones and allows full reprogramming of almost every other key instead, and has more customisable backlighting too. However, it does use Kailh rather than Cherry MX switches. There are also better keyboards available for this cash if macros aren't your thing, especially the Corsair Vengeance K70, but all considered the Tactic Pro just does enough to earn a recommendation if macros are a must for you.