Build Quality:
The build quality of the Ducky One TKL Rgb is exceptional. Like its older brother, the Ducky Shine 6 which has also been reviewed here before, the Shine One uses a sturdy and tough soft touch plastic material for the housing. This gives the keyboard a satisfying silky feel which allowing the keyboard to hold its shape. Under our stress test, the eyboard showed no signs of flexing even when extreme pressure was placed and with this, the Ducky One survives our stress test.
During our durability test, the Ducky One TKL RGB also passes with flying colours. Upon dropping this keyboard onto solid ground 3 times, the keyboard remained functional and no keys went out on us. This is likely due to the 2 metal plates inside the housing, one which the switches are housed in and one on the very bottom of the keyboard. These metal plates are likely responsible for absorbing the shock from the drops and also helps the keyboard maintain its shape when dropped.Overall, the Ducky One TKL RGB passes both our build tests with flying colours.
Backlighting:
The backlighting of the Ducky One TKL RGB is superb and even surpasses the amazing backlighting on the Shine 6 which we have actually reviewed before as well. The Ducky ONE features the under switch design housing, where the RGB LED is placed below the switch housing, preventing any chance of Electro-Static Discharge (ESD) damage to the switch itself rather than having the LED on top of the switch. However, unlike companies who adopt this housing style, like corsair's K70 keyboard, the Ducky One produces very vibrant lighting and it gets very bright on its highest setting, especially with its white backplate reflecting the light upwards, creating more punchy colours and providing a better colour gamut whereas the K70 utterly disappointed as I feel the LED don't bring that punchy lighting whihc we see on the Ducky One. Therefore, overall the backlightingon the Ducky One exceeds all expectations, especially since they improved the LED over the Shine 6, making this keyboard a much better RGB keyboard as compared to the Shine 6 Itself.
Keyswitches
The Keyswitches, like the Ducky Shine 6 uses Cherry's MX series switches. Currently the cherry mx RGB Reds,RGB Blues and RGB Browns are available on the Ducky One. The Shine One we got came with Cherry MX RGB Red switches, with 45g of actuation force, meaning it takes 45g to actuate the switch and has a actuation distance of 2mm and 4mm to bottom the key out completely. The red switches are linear and through our time with them, gave us no real problems. The switch provides fast feedback, allowing for many lines and words to be typed at one instance without stopping. On our speedtest test, we achieved over 100 Words Per Minutes (WPM) and the switches didn't feel hard to use when typing, unlikesome chinese knockoffs, where the switch feels stiff in the start and only feels like a true red switch after months of using it.However, one issue i would put up, like every red switch, due to the low actuation force, the chance for pressing 2 keys at the same time tremendously increased and in our typing test, although we hit 100wpm, we made alot of typos and many of them came from pressing 2 keys at once. However, comparing the keyboards keyswitches, the cherry MX switches here, accompanied by the PBT keycaps, makes this keyboard among some of the best keyboards we have tested.
Final Thoughts:
Overall, the One TKL RGB from Ducky gets a 10/10 from us. Overall,despite the premium price, for the price you're paying, the keyboard is still amazing. Coming with very premium features, like the softtouch plastic material, unlike many keyboards who use a metal housing these days, makes the One TKL different from the competition and really makes the keyboard stand out. Also, along with the amazing German Manufactured Cherry MX switches and the backlighting which is on another level from the competition.Therefore, I feel that if you're someone whos looking for a premium, high end keyboard, the Ducky One TKL RGB is one keyboard you should definitely look out for.
