Redragon K556 RGB LED Backlit Wired Mechanical Gaming Keyboard, 104 Keys Hot-Swap Mechanical Keyboard w/Aluminum Base, Upgraded Socket and Noise Absorbing Foams, Quiet Linear Red Switch

I have 2 of these, both going strong after more than 2 years of daily usage. The software is adequate but not great. I rarely use it - the light controls are functional enough from the keyboard that I havent really needed it. RGB is bright and nice enough for my needs. I dont do much with RGB customization though. I like the brown switches. The keyboard feels heavy duty - metal chassis and keycaps have been solid. Its as ergonomic as you get in typical keyboard format. Its comfortable to type on if you use a normal keyboard layout. Overall great entry level mechanical keyboard. Possibly higher quality than most entry level ones. Ive been happy with the durability and function. Nicer build and keycaps than the one-handed keyboard I have from them (K585 - which is fine this just has a better feel). I considered 4 starts b/c of the software, but I dont use that enough to deduct a star. Overall, I would purchase again if looking for this type of product.

I really like this keyboard, I pressed it about 2 years ago and it’s worked fine until recently. About 6 month to a year ago the F key stopped registering all the time. It was find with me because I used that key a lot. About 2 months ago the left shift key and D key started doing the same thing. Now the D key has stopped working. I generally love this key board and thinking of buying another. It was definitely worth the price.

Had this keyboard for about two years now, editing my good entry keyboard review to something useful by writing the things I wish I knew. Positives: good weight, stiff, like the surface finishes, 100% keyboard. Id recommend Pudding style keycaps. The issue of this keyboard is the fact that the springs all resonate with each other like two tuning forks held close to one another. This could be solved by lubing the springs tops and bottoms but this is supposed to be entry level and prebuilt. For convenience sake, just expect this keyboard to sing back a metallic pitch as you type or bump it. This keyboard is hot swap: the switches are very weak at the points where you remove and are prone to breaking before removing. These switches are not cherry but from what Ive heard, equivalent in feel. The connectors on the switches are thinner than most keyboard switches and the keyboard does not have holes cut for the two plastic stabilizing stems many switches come with. You will have to trim those off to fit in the keyboard if the switch has thin enough connectors to start off with. The best values for actually get white LEDs: R-135, G-255, B-200. Ultimately the Keycaps do not diffuse the LEDs to blend them enough. Neither Signal, Open RGB, Asus Aura, nor Gigabytes Fusion found this board before mods. Mods: putting in a usb-c daughter board is an ongoing process. I can not get this to fit in the center hole without cutting this metal case. But, it ultimately did work. You can flash the software to QMK with guides. This is a little buggy but now Open RGB works. Lubing the stabs was a huge change. Lower pitch modifier keys, and minimize any sounds besides the switches. I used dielectric grease here and no Band-Aids. You use Dielectric grease for its moisture repellent, non conductive, and not chemically reactive properties. The goal is to have the stabilizer wire move around the stem housing slowly as its harder to move through grease than through air. PE Foam and tape did change the sound but having the keyboard sit on the foam changed the sound more. So having a squishy deskmat will do the same. There are so many holes to account for this pcb that the tap mod was a nightmare. Keycaps still held up but I dont like the legending.

Was DoA. Refunded. There is always someone who gets the bad one, but that might not represent the norm. On the one hand, it was DoA. On the other, I have great respect for the way Redragon takes care of its customers. They have treated me very well with other products of theirs. As such, I have to give them the benefit of the doubt. **** Edit 10/5/17 **** Previously I had listed this keyboard as a neutral three stars. The prior review, above, should explain why. DoA, refunded, but understanding that I was just the guy who got the dud in the batch. No big deal, just a nuisance to be that guy. But I fully realize it doesnt represent the norm, so I gave it a neutral 3. Im updating my review to be an outstanding 5 as I now have a replacement keyboard thanks to Sain Store. Please read my comment section to see that story. I feel its important that those reading my product review are also aware of how Sain Store reacted to my initial DoA keyboard. Im the guy in the family that builds and maintains all of the computers for everyone else. Ive been in charge of purchasing decisions for companies and so on (including my own). I currently own many gaming products from Redragon, Logitech, Corsair, and Razer. My personal feelings relating to the Redragon K556 Keyboard are based on comparing how it stands up against other flagship products like the Corsair K95 RGB Platinum with Cherry MX brown switches, the Logitech G910 Orion Spectrum, and of course others of the past like the Logitech G19 keyboard (all of which I own). Build Quality. The first thing you notice when you take this keyboard out of the box is that its heavy and not built like a flimsy plastic afterthought. Its got some weight to it which really makes it feel like its built to withstand a house falling on it. Nothing about this keyboard feels cheap. I wouldnt be surprised if it has a secret double life as a baseball bat or if it doesnt double as tire spikes for the local police department when your not looking. Its the most durable piece of hardware Ive seen in a long time. The last time I saw a keyboard that felt this solid, was a mechanical typewriter thats best suited as a boat anchor. No wonder they have an 18 month warranty. How many of those cheap keyboards have more than a 30 day warranty? I will say I have called on the Redragon 18 month warranty for other products and they do take care of you the right way. Unlike other places that are a serious pain to deal with. Redragon support has earned my respect multiple times. Quality products, Outstanding support, and generally cheaper prices than competitors (think Logitech, Razer, Corsair) for the same type of hardware. I will most certainly continue to base my future buying habits on that. Gaming Keyboard. Many non gamers may not realize the difference between a standard keyboard and a high end gaming keyboard. I cant count the times someone has asked me to help them with a gift for someone as they put together a system for a gamer. And Ive had to explain that they cant get just any old cheap keyboard for gamers. As any hardcore gamer knows, not all keyboards are created equal. Gamers often have to press far more keys at the same time than a standard keyboard is capable of recognizing. Maybe Im pressing CTRL for crouch, SHIFT for sneak, W and D to walk in a particular direction, and also trying to hop over a ledge with the space bar. Needing five or more keys to all be recognizable at the same time is extremely common for gamers to the point of them not being able to play without it. And typical generic keyboards simply were not designed to be able to do the things that gaming keyboards have to accomplish. Search on youtube for Angry German Kid... if you dare or just want a good laugh. This is what happens when you get your gaming loved ones a cheap keyboard. I suspect, however, that if that keyboard was one of these heavy Redragon keyboards, that it would have won the fight. The Switch (Cherry MX Brown) Of course, there are other reasons why dedicated gaming keyboards are important. Least of which is the switch used for each key. In the case of the Redragon K556 keyboard, it comes with custom switches that are the equivalent of Cherry MX Brown switches. Gamers need a durable switch as they generally put the keyboard through a fair amount of stress. The Cherry line of switches are rated at 50 million presses before failure which means this keyboard would likely outlive me, assuming Redragons custom switches are indeed equivalent. The switch also needs to be fast, as every micro second is the difference in win or loose. Gamers take these things very seriously. Cherry MX Brown Switches. Red switches are often the choice for seriously hardcore gamers. These have very little movement before they activate, sending a signal that the button was pressed. They also dont have a detente or point of resistance that they move beyond to activate. With little resistance and activation at an extremely short point of pressure, anyone who rests their hands on these keyboards can have problems as they register key presses just brushing against it. People buying these keyboards for typing may struggle as they are so sensitive. Gamers like them because they want the keys to activate as fast as physically possible, to give them the best reaction times. Blue is a very common choice for those that want a clicky switch and tactile bump. These are generally the keyboard of choice for typists. They need to be pressed a bit further down before activating. Making them less sensitive than the Cherry MX Red. The key also has a bit more resistance than the Red. Combined with a tactile bump, a little more leeway before they activate, and a touch more resistance, these give the feedback of that clicky mechanical keyboard that a lot of typists want. Brown now, is the middle man. I use my keyboard for both gaming and typing. I do rest my hands on the keys/keyboard. And I consider myself a fairly hardcore gamer. I want that edge over the other guy. I didnt load up my game because I want to loose. I want to win. At the same time, I want to be able to use my keyboard to type various documents, like this review. Ive done a fair amount of programming and other types of work that require me to be able to properly type without getting 16 errors every sentence. The brown switches are considered to be a tactile, non clicky switch. They have a detente or point of resistance that many might not realize is there. If you just push down the button like you would typing something, it just feels like a standard level of resistance in pushing a key. But if you push slowly, you can feel that its actually moving over a little bump. It has limited resistance, but does have an ever so slight little bump that means slightly brushing your hands over the keyboard wont trigger it. Its that sweet spot that gives good reaction times while not being feather sensitive to the point that its hard to even use. For me, this is the switch of choice. I must end this section with a slight declaration. Everyone types differently. Some are heavy handed. Some are not. What Ive been saying about switches is a generalization. Generally speaking... most typists... etc. There are certainly a lot of typists who are accommodated to the red switches and love them. There is no way for anyone to know that all typists are going to prefer one over the other. We are all different in how we place our hands, how heavy handed we are, the angle of the fingers, position adjustments based on large or small hands that might be easier to rest or need to stretch further, and so on. I strongly urge people to try the different types of switches to see for themselves which they prefer. Ive seen people complaining about not being able to type one sentence on the Reds without 16 errors. And there are plenty of typists who love them. My preference is the Brown. Your mileage may vary. Fn Keys. This keyboard uses a Fn key to control its extra features like media player, volume, back-light modes, and etc. It keeps it simple and easy and does it right, without crowding everything up in an annoying way like a laptop. Everything is grouped in nice logical locations with easy to see icons, making this quite nice to actually use. Fn + F1-F4 Media Player, Volume Down, Volume Up, and Mute toggle. Fn + F5-F8 Stop, Rewind, Play/Pause toggle, Fast Forward Fn + F9-F12 Email, Browser, Calculator, Search Fn + Windows Start key toggles both the Windows Start button and the Application/Context Menu buttons on and off. Gamers who are often in need of pressing the shift and control keys in combination with several others, commonly end up hitting the windows start key by accident. However, in a full screen game, this can have devastating effects. At the very least, this is extremely annoying. And at worst, it can lock up the game completely. Fn + Plus and Minus keys (main keyboard). Controls the speed of the back-light cycle. Does the rainbow move fast or slow across the keyboard. When the keyboard gets to its min or max speed, the three leds (Caps lock, Num loc, and Scroll lock) will blink letting you know its as fast or slow as it gets. Fn + Up and Down arrows. Controls the brightness of the back-lighting. Again, the three led lights will blink when you hit the brightest or dimmest (off) positions indicating it cant go further. Fn + Left arrow. This toggles the direction of the cycle. Are the rainbow colors moving to the right or to the left. Fn + Right arrow. This changes the color between 9 different options. Rainbow, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Cyan (light blue), Blue, Purple, Violet. Then it starts over at Rainbow. Back-lighting Modes: Fn + Ins, Del, Home, End, PgUp, PgDn. These are the back-light patterns you can choose. Each of the six buttons cycles between three different back-light modes giving 18 in total. You may not remember which of the six buttons are which mode, but youll know which buttons to check without having to look it up. Fn + Ins. 1. The trial of Light, 2. Breathing, 3. Normally on Fn + Home. 1. Ripple Graff, 2. Pass without Trace, 3. Coastal Fn + PgUp. 1. Huricane, 2. Accumulate, 3. Digital Times Fn + Del. 1. Go with the stream, 2. Clouds fly, 3. Winding Paths Fn + End. 1. Flowers blooming, 2. Snow winter jasmine, 3. Swift action Fn + PgDn. 1. Both ways, 2. Surmount, 3. Fast and the furious Reset to default. Fn + PrtScrn. The final Fn key. This will reset the keyboards back-light settings to the defaults. Of note, there is no icon on the keyboard for this Fn key. Back-light tips, notes, thoughts, etc. Some may want just a static non moving color. Perhaps some need a less distracting pattern for an office or something. The back-light mode Normally on is for you. Then use the Fn+Right Arrow to pick your color. You can have a static non moving rainbow, or one of the eight solid colors. Or as an alternative, use The trial by Light mode (described in the next paragraph). Some of the back-light options have no effect on some of the different modes. For example, The trial by Light mode is a solid color across the keyboard that slowly fades through the full color gradient and starts over. Its a way to have a non distracting solidly lit up keyboard, but that also varies the color over time to give some variety. However, the back-light option to change the color does nothing with this mode. Based on what the mode is supposed to do, changing it to one color would be pointless. Then you would just have one solid color, which is what the Normally on mode is for. The second set of patterns (the three patterns on the Fn+Home key) are all interactive patterns. Meaning that a pattern emanates out from the keys as you press them. Ripple Graff is a wave going outward from the key pressed across the keyboard like an expanding circle. Pass without Trace rapidly lights up the key when its pressed and then it slowly dims out (leaving lots of lit up and slowly dimming keys on the keyboard as you type). If the rainbow color pattern is selected then the keys will be random colors, otherwise they will all be whatever solid color is chosen. And the last pattern, Coastal, shoots a wave out horizontally across the one row of the key that was pressed. As you type on different rows, it has a cool effect of lights shooting out on different levels across the keyboard. All of the other patterns are non interactive. The default back-light mode if you reset the keyboard (Fn+PrtScrn), is Go with the stream. It is not the first one in the list on the first back-light mode Fn key. Its easy to think pressing Fn+Ins for the first time will take you to the second mode by assuming you are on the first one already. Nope, after the reset your mode is down in the middle of the list somewhere. Its a nice side scrolling rainbow effect. Of note, one problem with Corsair K95 Platinum (among several with its onboard profile storage mechanics), is that when you bog down the computer with some kind of seriously intensive disk thrashing or something, the lights on the Corsair stop and wait for the system to recover. What this most likely indicates is that the Corsair is using software (ie. drivers) on the computer to run its light show. While likely minimal effect on your computers performance, this is one more thing using up cycles on your computer rather then it having its own dedicated hardware to run that light show. If it had its own hardware running that show, the light show wouldnt stop and wait for the computer when its bogged down. Id expect more from a $200 keyboard. The Redragon K556 on the other hand, just keeps on going at full speed. This means its light show is running off of hardware in the keyboard and does not use up CPU cycles to run it with software on your computer. Software. This is where Id like to see some improvement. If we want this product to compete with with the big boys like Razer, Logitech, and Corsair keyboards, then the software will need some active work to help it mature and turn into what it can be. There is nothing really wrong with the software. It is fully functional and does what it should nicely. But to really be competitive, it will need to up its game with a few more feature rich functions. Dont misunderstand either. I feel it has all of the features that would be technically mandatory to have for this type of thing. But I also think thats where it ends. There isnt something wrong with it that would take away a star. But compared with the other big names, it could also do a lot more then it does on the software side. There are three profiles you can switch between on the main screen. And if that isnt enough, on the top right by the windows min/max buttons is an additional button shaped like a triangle pointing up, with a line under it. This drops down a menu where you can import/export profiles, giving you virtually unlimited profiles. You can setup macros, reassign keys to be a different key press, or assign programs to be run. There is a macro repository where all of your macros are stored and with just a few clicks you can assign them to whatever keys you want. You can also select which back-light mode will be used for each of the three profiles. And of course you can customize them with all the various options. If youve read all the way to the end, then I thank you for taking the time to do so and I hope that Ive been able to provide some useful information.

I also have a K552 and K598, which have a metal-like material for key caps, this one has plastic. The LED brightness on the keys seems dimmer with the plastic key caps but not by much. The surface for the light to shine through seems smaller on the plastic key caps, as compared to the metal key caps. This is not an issue for me, it is merely an observation. With metal key caps and brown switches, you still get a clacking sound. With these caps, its much softer. Im still looking for the right combination so my next one will be metal key caps with brown switches on a 104 key keyboard. And another wireless TKL with half-height keys for portability (I hope... these things are heavy!).

I am meticulous when it comes to testing things out and I will detail some things that really bug me. I hate small keys. I saw that this was a couple of inches longer than my Wisfox and had hoped that this translated to larger keys. Nope. At least the spacing between keys is quite good for their size. This keyboard feels great if you are FACING it straight on (Im sort of an angle typer, if that makes sense) though I have to be really careful to hit the correct keys. Im a bit impaired and wider keys would make things so much easier for me. Maybe Redragon or ChalengeUSA has a keyboard that has larger keys with the same functionality? Please let me know. Edit: 12/03/2020: I had a lot of uncomfortable moments last night while playing Cold War. The keys just didnt feel right (again, too small for my needs). The spacebar was a little wonky which I use a lot. Software functions are great but phsycally feeling this keyboard is a fail for me. I will be returning. So sick of shopping for keyboards, its been a nighmare. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ If youre wondering, YES, you can assign colors to individual keys. But regarding that: A very annoying issue is that the keys have a blatant magenta hue to them instead of being just clear and the color choices are quite sadly affected by this. I detest this. I want white to look WHITE (I kind of need white keys for some things). Brown and orange look EXACTLY the same due to the magenta tinting. Naturally, my phone camera doesnt show the magenta tint. Gotta love android phones! I am REALLY worried about the etching on the keys wearing off. Some of the letters are missing a tiny bit at the bottom. The bottom part of the A and P keys on the capslock look only partially inscribed. Several of the numbers have a gap in either the top or the bottom so arent technically complete characters. Maybe a poorly chosen style choice? The G key (amongst others) has dark spots on part of the key making it look like someone had ink run out while writing the letter. The Ps on the Numpad look like partial letters. The Numpad page up/page down keys just have very badly done letters all around. After looking over several keys closely with my trusty reading glasses, I can see a dark area where its supposed to be bright so the machine that printed them just wasnt exact and misprinted parts of them. The brown switches are slightly louder than expected though they felt very nice. I put O-Rings on them and it dampened sound a hair. I tried putting TWO O-Rings on them but the keys wouldnt stay on. I checked the spacing and why 2 rings caused that to happen I have no idea. Another reason to double-up the O-Rings is if you want to raise certain keys like WASD so its harder to miss them in heated FPS games. Anyway, pending them offering me a similar keyboard with BIGGER keys I am sticking to this keyboard for the time being.

It took a friend of mine a long time to convert me to mechanical, and now I can never go back. It takes a bit of adjustment due to the height difference in keys between this and say, a membrane keyboard, but typing is amazingly smooth and I feel like my WPM has improved. Actual construction of the product is fantastic; very solid. The brushed metal and trim top-down profile look great. Also of note, but not worth taking a star off the actual product rating: Amazon sent this to me by simply slapping a shipping label onto the original packaging. I count myself lucky that the item was in fine working order, and that it wasnt swiftly stolen from my doorstep, as a result. Please do better! My only teensy nitpick is that the color settings, while attractive, dont fare well if youre aiming for an all-white effect; it sort of fires off all colors at once to maintain it, and it makes for a subtle but noticeable flickering, almost strobe effect that was pretty distracting in my peripheral vision. Nothing wrong with sticking to the default solid rainbow lighting, though!

I’ve been using this keyboard for several months now and love it. Pros: I’m a fast typed and it keeps up perfectly with no lag. So far no problem with the costing wearing thin or rubbing off. Last keyboard was a much cheaper one and the black coating on the keys wore off quickly which removed letters and made the keyboard look bad. The only cons is I wish it had an on/off switch instead of having to unplug it when I’m done.

Very responsive keyboard. Lots of customizable lighting settings. Very heavy so it doesnt move around when gaming and the feet grip the desk very well.

Highly recommended if you can’t afford anything better.