Preface
Before I start this review I do want to mention that I've purchased this board with my own money and all opinions are my own. Price of the keyboard + a bonus set of (free) keycaps at time of purchase was $103,- including shipping and taxes. MSRP is $150 but it goes on sale frequently and a 5% coupon code can be used. There is a cheaper plastic version of the board available that uses the same PCB and software so parts of this review will also be relevant to that unit.
Intro
The RS6+ is a Hall Effect keyboard by the Chinese brand ATK. The board comes with 3 extra keycaps in alternative colors (escape, space bar and enter), 4 extra leviathan switches, a fairly decent keycap and switch puller, a piece of sound dampening foam for the space bar, and a braided USB-C cable. Mine also came with a bonus set of clear ABS keycaps that have a carbon fiber like pattern.
Design
I was pleasantly surprised as far as the design of the case goes. It’s fairly neutral looking without any overly gamery aesthetic. The only visible branding is a black on black print that can’t be seen during normal use and is almost invisible if you’re not actively looking for it.
The keycaps unfortunately have a less neutral design. They have a very distinct gamer aesthetic with a fairly hard to read font. The symbols are especially difficult to distinguish and get even harder to read when the backlight is on (example, backlight at 20% and 100%). If you don’t care about being able to read your keycaps then this set is actually not that bad. The side is transparent glossy and the top is transparent matte with a very nice feeling texture to it. I’m not sure if the matte top finish is a coating or just a finish layer.
Build Quality
The build quality of the RS6+ is solid. The whole thing, including the bottom of the case and the switch plate, is made of aluminum, there is no flex at all in the entire board, and I could not find any machining or build quality issues. The board also doesn’t move around on my desk at all. The USB port is recessed but the opening is fairly large so there shouldn’t be any issues with replacement cables.
Switches and Sound
The switches on the RS6+ are quite good. They have a low bottom out force and pleasant rebound. There is a tiny bit of stem wobble but nothing excessive. My most used keys (WASD) have developed a very tiny bit more stem wobble over the 6 month period that I've had this keyboard for but nothing actually problematic.
As far as sound goes the RS6+ is quite loud, especially on the spacebar. The provided foam dampener helps with the spacebar noise but covers up 4/5 LED’s around the spacebar so there is definitely a tradeoff to using it. SOUND SAMPLE
Switches are hot swappable but as of right now the software only has built in support for 8 other switch types in the switch selector, and only supports actuation settings between 0.1 and 3.4mm. I’m not sure what would happen if you’re using a switch with more travel (like a wooting lekker tikken for example at 4.0mm) but i would assume everything still worked correctly with the slider just not being entirely accurate anymore (thinking the 4.0mm bottom is actually 3.4mm, still working but the distance not being correct). The keyboard has a built-in calibration feature as well as an auto calibration so I don't think you’ll run into issues when swapping the switches, but I would still recommend the wooting 60/80he instead if this is something you’re really interested in.
The stabilizers on my unit have little to no rattle (only a very slight bit of rattle on the space bar) and are generously lubed.
Software and Features
As far as features go this keyboard pretty much has everything you’d want in a hall effect keyboard, including full controller emulation, SOCD, rapid trigger, on board profile switching, rappy snappy, DKS, mod tap, and on board macros. The keyboard is also fully compatible with MacOS and has an option to switch between 6-key rollover and n-key rollover for BIOS and older device compatibility.
The lighting effect options are also decent and can be adjusted directly from the keyboard without the software being open at all. There is a “light show” option that adds a bunch of extra lighting effects including ones that automatically adjusts based on sound or kills in valorant (only supported game currently). Light show does require the software to be active in the background.
The only problem I've had with the software is that some parts are not fully translated to English yet. For normal use it isn’t much of an issue, and translation seems to be improving with updates, but you might have to whip out google translate every once in a while.
There’s also a web config available if you don’t want to install any software. It’s just not recommended to update firmware through the web version for stability reasons. Other than not supporting the light show feature there are no differences between the web and desktop client.
Performance
The RS6+ has excellent performance. Input latency is low and 8k polling works flawlessly.
There was a small bottom deadzone when I first started using it but this was easily fixable by turning off the AI algorithm and misstouch prevention. Even with both of these disabled I haven't had any issues like accidental releases or double clicks.
Final Verdict
The ATK RS6+ is an excellent keyboard that feels and performs a lot better than you’d expect for something at this price point. It includes all the features you’d want in a hall effect keyboard and it doesn’t make any big tradeoffs in order to achieve its price. The only notable downsides are the default keycap set being quite hard to read, the loud sound, and the possible lack of support for 3rd party switches. If you specifically want to have a keyboard that can use any switch I would still recommend getting a wooting 60/80he, but the RS6+ does everything else the wooting does for less than half the price. If you’re looking for a hall effect keyboard I would highly recommend the RS6+.
Thank you for reading.
