With origins dating back to 1937 with author J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit novel, The Lord of the Rings epic fantasy series is nothing if not enduring. Thanks to a resurgence in gaming, TV, and movies, including Amazon’s recent The Rings of Power series and upcoming animated film, The Lord of the Rings: The War of Rohirrim, Tolkien’s Middle-earth is seemingly as popular as ever. It’s not surprising then that a company like Drop, which targets the enthusiast market, would attempt to cash in on the reignited interest in The Lord of the Rings with licensed desk mats, wrist rests, keycaps, cables, keycap holders, and, yes, mechanical keyboards like the Drop + The Lord of the Rings Rohan Keyboard. Of course, just because it has some fun branding, doesn’t automatically make it worthwhile, but thankfully this is a solid tenkeyless keyboard even if its feature set doesn’t quite demand its price point.
Drop + The Lord of the Rings Rohan Keyboard – Design and Features
The Drop + The Lord of the Rings Rohan Keyboard is available in two base colors, each inspired by the kingdom of horsemasters and Riddermark’s two biggest cities. There’s the brown Edoras and the green Aldburg, each of which is otherwise identically adorned with pad-printed artwork from Olivia “Ollie” Shetler, aka OSHETART. I have the Aldburg, with its rich matte hunter green top, shinier metallic green base, and artwork embossed above the arrow keys. It’s quality work with a unique design that’s aesthetically pleasing.
In the box, you get the keyboard, straight white USB-C to USB-A cable, keycap puller, and various alternate key caps in green or yellow as a nice little perk to personalize the look. The keyboard works out of the box with any computer, but the FN hotkeys not related to the Rohan’s LED brightness only work with Windows systems.
Each key has a top LED white light above its switch. Using FN + Up Arrow increases the LED brightness across the board, while FN + Down Arrow decreases the LED brightness. The white light looks great in a dark room, particularly when shining behind the white keycaps, but brighter rooms dampen the effect considerably, even at maximum brightness.
Drop + The Lord of the Rings Rohan Keyboard – Performance and Customization
Preinstalled is the dye-sublimated PBT DCD Rohan Keycap Set with additional keycap novelties by OSHETART included to swap out. It’s easy to pull the caps off with the included puller and snap in one of the novelties, which are mostly pictograms, although there are also CMD keys for Mac users. Overall, despite the fancy font and solely pictograms for the usual ESC, Windows, and Function keys, there shouldn’t be much of a learning curve.
The switches are Holy Panda X Switches with Drop Phantom Stabilizers. The combination of the two is supposed to result in reduced stem wobble, increased consistency, and quieter activation compared to other types of mechanical keyboards. Overall, in regular usage, I’d agree with this claim, with roughly 65 dB of noise on average when tested right near the keyboard, more or less in the noise range of a normal conversation.
In terms of typing feel, however, I wasn’t quite as enamored with the performance. As a quality mechanical keyboard, it’s still leagues better than your average membrane-based keyboard, but I found these switches do require a firmer press before bottoming out than I’d typically like. It’s fine for regular typing, but I’ve had much more enjoyable typing experiences, even with the company’s own Drop CSTM80 Mechanical Keyboard, although I didn’t like either for fast-response gaming. Fortunately, it’s heavy enough at roughly 2.2 lbs to remain stable, with the anodized aluminum case minimizing flex.
Surprisingly, for a keyboard in this price range, there’s not a lot of customization options available other than cosmetic, like with some of Drop’s premium artisan keycaps, including one that’s Rohan-themed. Otherwise, there’s no software to customize any of its onboard features, not even Drop’s own Keyboard Configurator. For better or worse, this is strictly a plug-and-play keyboard.
Purchasing Guide
The Drop + The Lord of the Rings Rohan mechanical keyboard is available for $199.99 at MSRP (and occasionally goes on sale for $149.99) and can be purchased directly from Drop.
