Rosewill Cases, Keyboards, and More at CES
by Jarred Walton on January 14, 2014 7:26 PM EST_678x452.jpg)
Rosewill is one of those manufacturers that seems to dabble in just about everything. We mostly know them for their cases, power supplies, keyboards, and mice, but there’s plenty more – headphones/headsets, speakers, chairs, security cameras, flashlights, power banks… I’m not sure how long the list is, but it’s far more than we tend to cover. Our focus is mostly on the four traditional areas, of course, and Rosewill had some new cases and peripherals on display.
Starting with the cases, Rosewill has announced a new line of cases with the Legacy brand name. These are available in a range of sizes from mini-ITX to ATX, and they all feature aluminum allow exteriors with steel interiors. One of the cases even has “butterfly” sides that lift out sort of like the doors on a Lamborghini, which is sort of novel. Build quality looks good on the Legacy series, but without testing I can’t say much about cooling or other aspects of performance. Also on display was an updated version of the Blizzcon 2013 Blackhawk case, which has more of a gamer slant in terms of styling, while the Rise takes a more minimalist approach to case aesthetics and the Stealth has some angular themes inspired by the famous stealth fighter/bomber.
Moving over to the keyboard side of things, Rosewill had a couple membrane-based keyboards with three-color backlighting (red, blue, or purple). The RK-8300 and RK-8500 are basically the same, except the RK-8300 doesn’t have all the extra multimedia keys or the volume knob. Rosewill also had an as-yet-unnamed compact mechanical keyboard on display, and I believe it may be RGB backlit, but it wasn’t playing right with the powered USB hub so I couldn’t get the full demo. If it is RGB LEDs, it won’t be using Cherry MX switches, so that will be interesting to see what the keyboard feels like in comparison to the Cherry MX keyboards.
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lever_age - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
The Legacy line, which I saw on newegg already earlier, are from OEM Jonsbo. Europe's had them under the Cooltek label for a while.pierrot - Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - link
Theyre also on newegg's site under the DIYPC brand, i got one and it looks very nice, perfect ITX HTPC caseDentons - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
Rosewill has real issues with quality control. This is Newegg's house brand, so Rosewill products are frequently discounted and are generally priced near the bottom. It's often tempting to purchase a Rosewill branded housing, component, or peripheral.When a Rosewill branded peripheral seems the only reasonably priced option, you start to think, how can they get that wrong? It's such a simple piece. Well, they can.
In my long experience with Rowewill equipment, at best, you'll get an adequate product. In most cases though, you'll get a poorly assembled product that is prone to malfunction.
Even their cases suffer this. We've purchased many of them, no moving parts, should be simple. Out of the box, broken clips and other issues. It's often easier to fix these issues yourself than deal with Newegg RMA.
If Newegg could do one thing with their Rosewill line, it would be to trim the breadth of the offerings and bring in real quality control.
dac7nco - Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - link
Agreed. About the only Rosewill-branded products I've ever has pleasant experiences with have been a few "Hive" PSUs. Rosewill cases are like my Norco racksl; broken drive sleds, rattling fans, bent metal.JarredWalton - Thursday, January 16, 2014 - link
I've used a couple of their higher quality cases and PSUs without complaint (80 Plus Gold), and their keyboards so far have done fine as well. If you're buying a $50 case, it's probably a different story.purplestater - Friday, January 17, 2014 - link
I've bought at least eight Rosewill cases, for myself or friends, over the last six years and haven't had an issue with any of them.wsjudd - Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - link
"Rosewill also had an as-yet-unnamed compact mechanical keyboard on display, and I believe it may be RGB backlit, but it wasn’t playing right with the powered USB hub so I couldn’t get the full demo. If it is RGB LEDs, it won’t be using Cherry MX switches, so that will be interesting to see what the keyboard feels like in comparison to the Cherry MX keyboards."RGB backlighting (e.g. backlighting that be changed to any colour in RGB space) is as far as I know only possible with the new Cherry MX RGB switches, which are apparently exclusive to Corsair for one year. There are non-Cherry mechanical switches (e.g. Alps and (arguably) Topre) but they're quite rare for gaming keyboards - most likely this was just using Cherry MX switches of some kind with non-RGB backlighting.
Mr Perfect - Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - link
The comment on RGB LEDs ruling out Cherry MX switches is confusing to me. All Cherry MX housing have a small indent with lead pass through on them for mounting an LED. Many boards use it for the Lock-key status LEDS or backlighting. Why would this particular board having a RGB LED on each switch not work that way?alaricljs - Thursday, January 16, 2014 - link
Because that little spot for LEDs is for a 2-lead 3mm LED. RGB LEDs which you have control over each of the 3 elements require 4 leads which requires a 5mm minimum package size to accommodate. There are 3mm RGB LEDs but they color cycle all on their own.JarredWalton - Thursday, January 16, 2014 - link
I believe Corsair has an exclusive on the Cherry MX RGB LED switches, at least short-term. Maybe that's not correct, but I think Rosewill also mentioned the switches are not Cherry, but wouldn't tell me the brand.