Asus ROG Falchion Ace HFX review: too expensive for plastic

In stark contrast to the Falchion RX LP, the Ace HFX is black, though not across the board. The key caps are black, as is the top light bar and the edges of the body. However, Asus breaks up the design with a dark-silver plate for the key switches, and two silver controls on the back of the keyboard. It’s a classy-looking design. It’s just not a classy-feeling one, unfortunately.

This is a $200 keyboard, and I expected a least a little bit of metal in the construction, but it’s all plastic here. You could argue that’s a positive for an esports keyboard — at only 1.4 pounds, you can easily reposition the Falchion Ace HFX in a way that it’s comfortable — but the materials don’t lie. Asus is using inexpensive materials to build the Falchion Ace HFX while still charging a premium price.

Still, the Falchion Ace HFX looks great. Outside of per-key RGB, you get the aforementioned light bar, which pulls double duty as a status bar. On the back left side of the keyboard, there’s a textured piece of silicon that you can slide your finger on to access several functions, including volume and media controls. And as you adjust them, the light bar at the top will react. It’s an ingenious way to give you access to media controls while maintaining a tiny 65% form factor.

Sound and feel

It’s clear that Asus spent some time sculpting the sound of the Falchion Ace HFX. Something about the feel doesn’t quite match up with the sound. There are two layers of Poron foam as well as two layers of silicon sound dampening, leading to a very muted sound. That’s good in a lot of cases. The typical high-end ping you find on gaming keyboards isn’t present, and there’s a chunky low-end response when you’re slamming away at the keys. Still, something is missing.

The sound feels like Asus scooped out the midrange. You’re getting the low-end thonk with just enough click with each keypress to let you know this is a mechanical keyboard. But the lower midrange sound you get from something with heavier mechanical switches and careful lubrication isn’t present here, and some of that might be due to the plastic construction.

That’s my biggest issue with the feel of the keyboard. Although typing and gaming on the Falchion Ace HFX is solid for a Hall Effect keyboard, the fully plastic construction at $200 stings. It makes the keyboard feel, in the hands, much more inexpensive than it actually is. And, unlike the Razer Black Widow V4 75%, there aren’t extra goodies like a comfy wrist rest or an OLED display to justify that higher price tag.

In addition, you’re locked into Asus’ switches here. They’re good, resembling a linear mechanical switch with 40gf for the initial actuation, but you can’t swap out the switches. We’ve seen newer keyboards like the Glorious GMMK 3 that, although expensive, allow you to swap between mechanical and Hall Effect switches in the same keyboard.

Features

The main draw of the Falcion Ace HFX is right there in the name. Hall Effect switches not only give you control over the actuation distance of each key — from 0.1mm to 4mm — but also unlocks the rapid trigger feature. This basically gives the switch a dynamic actuation and reset point. Instead of pressing and releasing a key to the set points, the keys will actuate and reset based on what direction they’re moving. You can keep this locked to only certain keys, too — by default, rapid trigger is only enabled on the WASD keys.

This isn’t a new feature for Hall Effect keyboards; in fact, it’s the main draw of them. Asus’ contribution is a dedicated switch on the back of the keyboard to turn the rapid trigger feature on and off. I love that inclusion. Not only can you configure your keyboard without opening any software but you can also quickly toggle between the feature being on or off without remembering some hotkey. My only gripe is that the toggle is fairly loose — you could easily bump it and turn off rapid trigger if you game with your keyboard at an angle.

In addition to rapid trigger, you also get a speed tap mode. This has been popularized by Razer and Wooting, and it’s been referred to by some esports pros as cheating. In competitive FPS games, the idea is that you can strafe faster between the A and D keys due to the fact that the keyboard prioritizes the most recent input. You don’t need to fully lift your finger off one key to register the next input. Normally, if you press the D key while the A key is still held, your character won’t move. With speed tapping, you can strafe much faster.

This feature has already been banned in Counter-Strike 2, both on official Valve servers and in ESL events. Other games haven’t banned speed tapping, though they could in the future. Regardless, Asus is matching the competition here for features, and coming out slightly ahead due to the dedicated rapid toggle switch.

On the competitive bend, the Falchion Ace HFX also includes two USB-C inputs — one on either side of the keyboard. That’s great for positioning the keyboard, though I’m not sure how much the inclusion of an extra USB-C port bloats the price, and I doubt how practical it is for a lot of gamers.

For managing the Falcion Ace HFX, you’ll need to download Asus Armoury Crate. Among the many keyboard utilities available, Armoury Crate is near the bottom of the list for me. It’s just too dense. It’s important to remember that Asus makes desktops, laptops, motherboards, graphics cards, monitors, peripherals, and dozens of other products, and every single ROG-branded device is managed through Armoury Crate. If the Falchion Ace HFX is the only Asus device you own, there’s a ton of bloat in Armoury Crate that just doesn’t apply.

Particularly on the RGB front, I can appreciate Asus’ effort to unify different devices with features like Aura Sync, but there’s still a lot of bloat outside of these multi-device features. Asus packs in a tab for game deals, for example. You get some small discounts by registering your device, but the deals are powered by GamesPlanet — a separate website that already has solid game deals. I’d much rather find deals in my browser than bog down my keyboard utility.

Add on top of that news, user-created wallpapers, and yet another game library where you can import the games installed on your PC, and Armoury Crate has a lot of extras that extend far beyond managing a keyboard. More isn’t always better, and most PC gamers already have half a dozen utilities installed on their PC that do the exact same thing. And just like those utilities, I suspect Armoury Crate will live in the system tray, never to be touched, after you configure your keyboard.

As for managing your keyboard, you have some options in Armoury Crate. You can record and assign macros, adjust the speed tap and rapid trigger features, and swap basic lighting effects. Unfortunately, you can’t go any deeper than Asus’ basic lighting effects through Armoury Crate. You need to download the separate Aura Creator app if you want to create custom lighting effects on a per-key basis.

The silver lining here is that you can mostly ignore Armoury Crate. You can turn critical functions like speed tap and rapid trigger on or off with the keyboard itself, and you can trigger macro recording on-the-fly. The textured strip at the back of the keyboard also supports custom commands, and you have space for six onboard profiles. Between these options, you shouldn’t have to open Armoury Crate much.

Although I like the Falchion Ace HFX, it’d need to drop in price to earn a recommendation. Matching Wooting at $175 would be good, but a drop to $150 would make the Falchion Ace HFX very attractive. For now, you’re spending up for Asus’ first Hall Effect keyboard, and without the build quality that more niche brands offer around the same price.