Photos and Features

So past Rosewill keyboards have had a simple classic design with a basic (and thin) plastic bezel around the keyboard. The RK-9300 though has a completely different look with a floating key design. This means a completely different look, something closer to a Corsair than a standard keyboard. Unlike Corsair though, Rosewill finished the backplate rather than going with a bare aluminum design. The finish is really weird and I wasn’t a fan of it when taking photos. It is best described as glossy but with a texture. This made getting photos a little hard as it wanted to reflect and it gives is a white look under the light. In person, the finish is solid. You get an easy to clean design but it doesn’t get fingerprints the same as a glossy finish or a flat finish would get, so in that way, it is really nice.

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With the top down view, we can get a better look at the key layout. I love that they went with a fully standard key layout so replacement keycaps sets will fit, not that I think you will want too. They used a nice easy to read font, a welcome change from all of the companies using gaming “themed” fonts. All of the keys are backlit but the function layer actions are all printed on in white. This view does give us a better look at the interesting glossy textured finish as well. Up in the top right corner, they went with a big window for the number, scroll, and caps locks. There is also a forth for the windows key lock. I personally think going with a smaller pinhole LED layout would have been cleaner and looked better, but all in all the board looks good.

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While there aren’t any special keys, macro keys, or volume control knobs on the RK-9300, it does take advantage of a function layer. There are brightness controls on the direction pad but beyond that, the F keys also have a few functions. The F1 key opens up Windows Groove and then from there, you get volume controls and media controls. F9 turns the backlighting on and off and the F10 lets you flip between a few different lighting modes for breathing, full lighting, 80%, and a gaming mode with just WASD. The last two are locks for the windows key and the second actually locks all of the keys out.

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While the top of the 9300 is aluminum, around on the back we can see that the bottom half of the keyboard is plastic. The back of the keyboard doesn’t have anything going on other than the three exit points for the USB cable. The cable itself is completely standard, no fancy sleeving or anything. It is a basic 6-foot black rubber cable with a gold finish on the connection itself. This follows the rest of the theme of the keyboard with exactly what you need but nothing extra to run up the costs.

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From the side profile, we can get a much better look at the floating key design. There is no bezel around the outside of the keyboard and they use the backplate as the main accent. This gives a unique look that Corsair first brought out and it also makes cleaning your keyboard much easier. It does mean from the sides though you can see the keyswitches. The side also has this weird accent at the back to give the 9300 a little different look than all of the other floating key designs. Beyond that, the keyboard has a natural angle with an OEM profile to the keycaps as well to give the home row the lowest row.

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There are a few things going on the underside of the 9300. For starters we can see that the USB cable is not removable, that would be a nice upgrade in the future. There is, however, a cord track where you can run the cord out of three spots on the back or both ends. The center has a sticker with the model information and all of the normal certifications. From down here we can also see those weird accents on the sides of the keyboard. For feet, you get two in inch and a half wide rubber feet on the bottom and two shorter feet on the top. The top also has two flip out feet with rubber on the ends as well if you want to angle the keyboard more than the standard angle.

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With a few keys popped off, we can get a better look at the switches. Rosewill stuck with genuine Cherry switches, something that seems rare in the market these days. These are the older black design because this isn’t an RGB board, so the LEDS come out the top rather than being PCB mounted. Our sample has Cherry Browns, one of my preferred switches but you can also get the RK-9300 with Blues as well. I was surprised they didn’t have a Cherry Red option as well though to cover all three switch types. They are also using Cherry stabilizers, this is the design that puts the stabilizer bar under the backplate. This means swapping keys or cleaning should be easy, you don’t have to fight to put the clips back on.

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The keycaps on the RK-9300 were another big surprise. Normally with a keyboard like this, you get the same old stuff done over and over. Rosewill actually went with a double shot keycap though rather than the basic painted backlit keycap. This means that no matter how much wear the keycaps get, you won’t wear through the top finish. The black and the transparent go all the way through the plastic. They used an ABS plastic though so you can expect these caps to get smooth over the years. PBT is the preferred material if you don’t want wear, but it costs a lot more. Getting double shot caps at all on a factory keyboard is awesome.

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