The hugely popular ROCCAT Vulcan keyboards welcome a new member to their family in the Vulcan TKL Pro. We were sent their brand new white version which released just in time for Christmas and it’s firmly become my favourite part of my gaming setup.
Having reviewed and loved the Vulcan Pro in a previous review I was looking forward to seeing how I would get on using a TKL version. I’ve always had my number pad to hand so for the first couple of weeks I’d find myself going to press buttons that weren’t actually there, but once you get used to it there shouldn’t be a problem.
The keyboard isn’t cheap, it’s currently on sale at £120, down from £149.99 but you are getting a neat piece of kit. The artic white version looks fantastic, with a brushed aluminium frame on the board with bright white keys that create a clean, crisp look. The backside of the keyboard is plastic with several rubber feet and two height adjustment pop-up stands for raising the keyboard above the desk.
The keyboard comes with a detachable 1.9m USB-C to USB-A cable with a braided rigid outer sheath. The cable is Roccat branded and features a black keyboard etching on the side of the USB-A plug connector, which helps identify the right side up. There is also a keyboard marking on the plug that also makes it easy to distinguish the Roccat cable, which is great if you have as many wires as I do!
Roccat also equipped the keyboard with a volume knob, dedicated mute button and RGB backlighting that creates a bright atmosphere thanks to the Titan Switch Optical’s transparent housing
ROCCAT’s new Titan Switch Optical has a 1.4mm actuation, giving lightning fast reactions, perfect for FPS titles, although if you are using it for say to day use you might want to keep a spell-checker handy.
I’ve been testing the keyboard for over a month and it’s great to use. I’ve played Fortnite (badly) and even some Halo Infinite (slightly better), the keyboard felt quick to respond and light to the touch, the key caps feel great even after heavy use.
As with all of ROCCAT’s products they are supported by Swarm, the app that manages forward updates and various customisation. The showstopper for ROCCAT is the AIMO lighting engine which can react to you and what you are doing on the screen without having to customise the keyboard. I’ll be honest, I have never been a fan of the system and much prefer to customise the RGB to my own tastes. I particularly like the fact you can customise different zones on the keyboard or even individual keys to colours of your choice. The colours are vibrant and look really impressive in darker environments.
As well as colour customisation you can use Swarm to assign functions to keys, create up to five different profiles and record macros. The further you delve into these options the more impressive the keyboard becomes. My favourite feature is the ability to save all of the customisation onto the the keyboard’s memory, which is great if you travel to tournaments or work with it.
It’s hard not to love this keyboard, it’s well built, looks fantastic and performs excellently. The software can be a bit of let down at times but it’s not enough of a reason not to have this piece of kit proudly sitting at your desk.
