Being a heavy typist myself, only the best keyboard can earn its place on my desk. I owned a mechanical keyboard before, but my old wireless membrane keyboard was proven superior in my personal preference.
Then comes the Armaggeddon Kai-9 Sentinel keyboard which we reviewed. It had its issues which I pointed out, but after some time, Armaggeddon sent me a new keyboard – the Kalashnikov AK550i. It looked more or less the same as before, but everyone knows to never judge a book by its cover.
Packaging
It comes in a very simplistic packaging, and has a very large 2 year warranty printed on it. Then, there are few other features described on the front of the packaging. Looks relatively clean to me.
Opening everything up and getting all the included things out, there’s really nothing much to be found here. Only the keyboard itself, and a driver CD. Nothing much.
Build quality
I would say that the build quality is quite amazing – tough sandblasted plastic all over with a very polygonal glossy parts to bring out for some looks. The plastic feels extremely rugged through the entire keyboard surface, but then again there is a little flex when pressed at the bottom of the spacebar key.
Then comes the backlight.
There are two colours to choose from – blue and red backlit. However I think that it should be called a side-lit keyboard instead of backlit. That’s because the keyboard’s keys do not have a transparent printings on the keys.
I did also complain that the Kai-9 Sentinel keyboard’s side. There are images showing the side of the keyboard emitting light, but that is going to happen as it’s a rendered image only. Not in the case for the all new Kalashnikov AK550i though.
I can’t stop smiling once I saw this. To be honest, the side lights aren’t that big of a deal, but it is definitely a nice addition. I can now see how close my mouse is to the keyboard by just looking at the reflection off my mouse. And at least they show the same thing as the packaging.
If you don’t like the light, hit Fn + Scroll Lock, that’ll turn them off.
There is however one distracting little colour choice – that yellow piece for the lock key indicators. Seriously, bright yellow?
One specialty of the Kalashnikov AK550i is the spill-proof design that it has. See that brighter red spot in between the four numbers on the keyboard? It’s the drain.
Gather all the liquid and let it flow out here.
I’ve tested the spill-proof design and all I can say is that I really love it. Obviously it’s not meant for thorough washing, but then again at least I can get water to gush out some of the gunk (potentially foodstuff) out of the keyboard!
This might be a godsend or a nuisance for some, as the Kalashnikov AK550i’s USB cable is biased to the far right side – useful if connected to the computer that is placed on the right side.
Comfort and performance
Then again, the most important thing is comfort of a keyboard. Now, it’s not only about the bounciness of the keys, but also how the USB cable is constructed and how the keys are placed.
The Kalashnikov AK550i has a large enter key with the backslash key has been moved to enlarge the Enter key and has shrunken the backspace key. This is a huge pet peeve of mine, but however it is still a very heavily biased personal preference.
Let’s come to the typing experience. Armaggeddon claimed that the Kalashnikov AK550i has “high profile, ultra-durable and silent keys”. For the most part, high profile is certainly true, as the key height differences between rows are noticeably higher compared to other membrane keyboards. This height might a problem for some, but particularly for me, it is manageable still.
As for the silent keys however, I couldn’t help but be amazed at how silent that this keyboard can be. Usually the entire room can hear me typing, but then this keyboard really has a lot of hardly-audible, bassy keystrokes each time I type.
However, the keys’ feeling are not consistent throughout the entire keyboard – like some keys are little more resistive than others. For example, the CTRL key is less bouncy compared to all of the 26 alphabet keys, and the ENTER key is by far the most resistive one on the keyboard. However, this is manageable if you type with a little more strength.
There is a full set of multimedia keys, except that there isn’t any next/previous buttons for music.
One last thing – I still hope that there’s a wrist rest for this keyboard though. Again, just a pet peeve of mine.
Software
Right off, there are a few issues that came into my mind. First of all, the entire keyboard can be reconfigured – or at least seemingly possible. On the keyboard itself, there is no right Windows key as it is replaced by the Fn key, but the software showed a Windows key on the right side instead.
Also, the software is somewhat confusing even for experienced users too.
Conclusion
The Kalashnikov AK550i is a keyboard with an amazing build quality, great typing experience, and with a very silent keys. However, the software has a few problems – there is not much to complain about on this great keyboard.
For an unbelievable price of RM79, this keyboard is a very great deal. I highly recommend this keyboard for anyone who is seeking for a membrane keyboard with more features, and also with seriously silent keys.
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