ASUS ROG Keris is a gaming mouse with a good blend of features

The ROG Keris doesn’t seem to be particularly outstanding in any one area, and this is perhaps what makes it great – it’s an all-purpose gaming mouse with a good blend of features.

While few mice can come close to the Superlight, the Keris is no slouch as well, tipping the scales at a more modest 79g. It’s certainly noticeable but it doesn’t mean that the Keris is unwieldy – far from it. It’s compact and the weight is more than manageable. What’s more important is that it has a bag of tricks that many will appreciate as well.

It’s a classic ROG look – somewhat minimalist with subtle design cues that reveal its gaming roots. Its flair comes in the form of Aura Sync RGB lights, and if you choose to, a pair of pink side buttons, which Asus includes as part of the package. The two-tone finish is a nice touch, but that’s down to function more than anything else. The primary buttons are coated with PBT, which adds a different shade of black and more importantly, makes the mouse grippy to the touch.

As mentioned, the Keris comes with spare side buttons – a set of pink and a set of grey. These buttons are mounted magnetically, so they are easy to replace on your own. It’s purely a cosmetic choice, however, and that’s all you can do to customise the side buttons. Asus does not provide you with options to replace the side button switches. However, when it comes to the primary mouse buttons, Asus does include an alternative in the package. The Keris come stock with Asus’ own 70M Micro Switches installed but they’ve also thrown in a pair of OMRON D2F-01Fs. What’s best is that the switches are push-fit, so there’s no need to whip out that soldering iron.

Both switches are quality so between the two, I’m pretty sure you’ll find something you’ll like. I prefer the feedback from the OMRONs but having swapped back and forth and back to the stock switches, I never felt compelled again to rip them out to put the OMRONs back in. The pre and post-travel on the buttons are minimal, so they feel rather satisfying.

The Keris is equipped with a PixArt PAW3335 sensor (16,000 DPI, 400 IPS, 40G), which is a fairly competent gaming-centric sensor, and it pretty much works as advertised. And with the snappy response offered by the impressive build quality, the Keris proved to be an enjoyable mouse to use over time. The asymmetrical arch on the Keris also makes it very cosy for palm and claw grips. Ergonomically, it’s also great as an everyday mouse. I’m not sure if fingertip style users might enjoy this but the mouse isn’t too heavy so I guess you can make do.

One thing good about Asus’ everything and the kitchen sink approach is that the Keris even offers the option for a Bluetooth LE connection. Thus, not only can you use it across devices, but also have the option to save battery power by switching over to Bluetooth when you’re not gaming. That said, the battery life while in 2.4Ghz mode isn’t too far behind. If I use it for work, I average about a charge a week or so if I’m in Bluetooth mode with long work hours of use. Coupled with the fast charge feature, where a 15-minute charge can get you over 10 hours of use, I never worry about running out of juice.

That’s also down to the fact that the Keris is pretty nice to use when wired. They’ve provided a paracord USB-C cable that not only attaches easily to the mouse, the wire glides across the table with minimal resistance. As you can already tell by now, Asus offers quite a bit in terms of accessories. On top of the spare side buttons, switches, and good quality USB cable, you have extra PTFE feet as well.

While Armoury Crate is the key method to tweak and control settings, the Keris does feature some dedicated buttons and switches. One switch lets you change wireless modes, while a dedicated button lets you cycle through preset DPI settings on the fly. Either you cycle through four presets, or you rotate the scroll wheel to set it by feel – the light changes colour from blue (lowest DPI) to red (highest DPI) so it’s pretty flexible in that sense.

All said and done, the Keris is a really solid offering. It’s well-specced, the price is reasonable, you get all the goodies that you could need, and there aren’t many flaws. The solderless option to customise switches might not appeal to the true hardcore modder, but it’s a nice feature to have for those who want to personalise their kit to a small degree.