Asus ROG Falcata Review: A Split Gaming Keyboard

Ergonomic split design. Lots of functional adjustments. Feels good to type on. Robust construction. Half-keyboard is ideal for gaming. 2.4-GHz wireless with 8K polling.

High price. Two halves need wired connection. Software issues.

While split keyboards have been around for ages, they don’t often venture into the world of gaming. The vast majority offer improved ergonomics and comfort for long days at the office, skipping high-end specs and premium mechanical switches. That’s not to say these keyboards aren’t capable of double-duty, but limited polling rates and productivity-oriented features mean they typically lack what you'll find on a modern-day gaming keyboard.

Asus has managed to bring the two worlds together. The ROG Falcata is a split 75 percent keyboard that's fast and comfortable. You get 8,000-Hz wireless polling for super-fast response times, fully-adjustable Hall effect switches, and gaming-focused capabilities like Rapid Trigger and SOCD (Simultaneous Opposing Cardinal Direction) input, alongside multiple ergonomic features. However, the $420 MSRP (and even the common $280 discount) is a steep asking price.

Familiar Layout

The typing experience on the Falcata is shockingly good. The switches are smooth without noticeable wobble, and the typing sound is reasonably deep while still maintaining some midrange. It doesn’t have the distinct top-end “clack” of a Cherry MX switch, but it’s better than many Hall effect switches I’ve tried.

The shorter split space bars result in a typing sound that’s more consistent with the rest of the keys (the length of a space bar typically results in a deeper sound than other keys), and the stabilizers in the longer keys are all lubed exceptionally well—none of them rattle or stick at all. They use an older model of clip-in plate-mounted stabilizers that aren’t quite as effective as modern printed circuit board (PCB)-mounted stabilizers, but the older design means the stems simply clip onto the internal wire and can be removed for re-lubing without disassembly.

Typing on this keyboard when it’s not split is perfectly normal. The two halves slot together without any gap, and the split space bar is functional, with each half sitting directly underneath its corresponding thumb. The only real hiccup is the B key. Technically, you should be pressing “B” with your left hand. It’s what nearly every typing program and guide teaches. However, a lot of people (myself included) don’t do this; instead, like heathens, we stretch our right index finger across the keyboard to hit it. Unlike other split keyboards, the ROG Falcata doesn't have a spare B key on the right half.

You’ll feel a pang of shame and idiocy every time you mindlessly fling your finger into the abyss between the keyboards, expecting a key to be there. I certainly did it my fair share of times. But once you’re accustomed to this switch-up, the angled layout becomes quite comfortable. The average keyboard layout, a monolith of staggered keys, isn’t the most ergonomic. The Falcata's layout doesn’t jump all the way to the likes of the Kinesis Advantage, but it’s a step in the right direction that still feels familiar enough to the average user—something many ultra-ergonomic keyboards fail to keep in mind.

Divisive Performance

Besides ergonomic improvements, the Falcata is primarily a gaming keyboard. The real benefit of a split keyboard here is being able to use half of it, saving a good amount of desk space for erratic mouse movement. You can easily disconnect the right half of the Falcata and use only the left side, since most PC gaming revolves around the WASD keys. It's a cool trick, but it only works if you’re 100 percent sure you won’t be typing at all. I found it a bit more irritating than beneficial. If I wanted to trash-talk in text chat, respond to a message during a loading screen, enter a console command, or pull up a video or play music, I was out of luck unless I had the time to retrieve, place, and plug in the other half of my keyboard.

Annoyingly, the left half of the keyboard is wireless, but the right half isn’t. Having a wireless keyboard with the two halves connected by a wire looks and feels bad. It's 2026. We have tiny earbuds that can wirelessly connect to your smartphone. Why can't this keyboard do the same? At the very least, a quick-disconnect in the middle of the cable or a magnetized connector could have made it more convenient.

The Hall effect switches allow for adjustments to actuation distance, along with Rapid Trigger functionality and SOCD inputs. Rapid Trigger has become fairly standard in the HE keyboard world, allowing for a switch to start registering another input immediately after it is released, instead of waiting for the switch to reset past its actuation point. SOCD settings allow for rapid strafing by prioritizing the most recent key input and disabling the other when two opposing movement keys (typically A and D) are pressed. While this setting is massively beneficial, some games (like Counter-Strike 2) have banned it from competitive play and will remove players from lobbies if it is detected.

I previously quite liked Asus’ Armoury Crate software—it was functional and intuitive to use and fairly lightweight to run in the background. However, the company has seemingly abandoned it in favor of a new web-based system, Gear Link. This software provides easy customization with helpful visualizations. There are in-app displays for actuation distance and rapid trigger functionality, showing when the key is recognizing an input and how it behaves when pressed, a feature quite a few other manufacturers could learn from. I initially ran into issues with Gear Link not properly remapping keys. This was fixed via a firmware update for my unit, but Asus didn't say when this update will be publicly available.

I’m put off by the fact that Gear Link is in a beta release, but it is the only option available for customization, despite Asus' own website claiming that the keyboard is compatible with Armoury Crate. Gear Link still lacks functions like firmware updates, which can only be done using the Armoury Crate software. Meanwhile, trying to customize the keyboard within Armoury Crate redirects you to Gear Link. Any keyboard with dedicated software (especially one at this price) should have it fully polished for a final release.

Modular and Modifiable

The keyboard has quite a few customizable bits included in the box. There are two wrist rests that can screw onto the underside of the keyboard, and two sets of four raised feet (four tall and four short) that can screw in underneath to position the keyboard at an angle. There are four mounting points at each corner here, meaning the keyboard can be angled from any side or corner. There is also a mounting point on each of the wrist rests. These options allow the keyboard to be “tented,” where the center of the keyboard is raised, and for the typing angle to be adjusted. My personal favorite was a combination of the two, where I placed the taller feet in the top center, and the shorter feet on the outsides, to both tent and angle the keyboard at the same time.

The wheel on the left side has options to adjust actuation distance, rapid-trigger sensitivity, and RGB brightness. You can also adjust volume and media playback, and turn it into a scroll wheel. The LED matrix below it is designed to display adjustments to actuation distance but feels a bit awkward: Each 0.1 mm of adjustment fills its own bar, and it only uses the bottom nine bars, so the screen will roll over four times when adjusting (the top three bars, with dots next to them, illuminate to show how many times the screen has rolled over during the adjustment). The saving grace of this is that, when adjusting the actuation distance, you can press down any switch to see a visualization of how far you’re pressing it, then tweak the actuation distance to match.

Alongside all of this, the Falcata (and, by extension, the Falchion) now has an aftermarket switch option: TTC Gold magnetic switches. While this is still only two switches, it’s an improvement over the singular switch option of most Hall effect keyboards.

Split Apart

The internal assembly of this keyboard is straightforward yet interesting. Instead of a standard tray mount, where the PCB and plate bolt directly into the bottom half of the shell, the Falcata is more comparable to a bottom-mount. The PCB screws into the plate from underneath, and the plate is screwed onto the bottom half of the case along the edges. While the difference between the two mounting methods is minimal, it does improve typing experience by eliminating the “dead zones” caused by a post in the middle of the keyboard, along with slightly isolating typing from the case (which creates fewer vibrations when typing).

The top and bottom halves can easily be split apart by removing the screws on the plate (no breakable plastic clips here!), but on the left half, four cables connect the top and bottom halves of the keyboard, all of which need to be disconnected before fully separating the two sections. Once this is done, the internal silicone sound-dampening can easily be removed. The foam dampening, however, was adhered strongly enough that removing it left chunks of foam stuck to the PCB, making it impossible to readhere without using new adhesive. This wasn’t a huge issue, since the foam could simply be placed into the keyboard, but it is still frustrating to see when most manufacturers have figured this out.

I managed to break one of the JST connectors inside the keyboard when pulling the two halves apart, but it was easy to bend the pins back into place and reconnect them. The internal mounting posts are made entirely from plastic, which means you’re wearing down the threads every time you disassemble the keyboard. This isn’t a big deal, but it's a little odd when all of the external threads for attaching the wrist rests and extended feet use threaded metal inserts. The build quality overall is solid, and assuming you don’t take it apart frequently to tinker, it should last.

The ROG Falcata does a lot of impressive things and has clever design features. All of this comes at a high price, however, and I’m not convinced it’s worth it compared to non-split Hall effect keyboards. It’s cool, but it’s not $420 cool.

There are some people for whom this is the perfect keyboard: Work-from-home gamers who want a single-solution keyboard that can save massive desk space while still being a functional, ergonomic, high-performance solution they can keep using after clocking out. If that applies to you, and you want to try a split gaming keyboard, this is the one to buy. It doesn’t have any deal-breaking flaws, but most people won't benefit enough from the split design to justify the expense.