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What a great keyboard! I had been looking for a lighted keyboard for a desk in an area that is typically on the darker side, even during the day. This keyboard has eclipsed my expectations by a million miles. I love the customization options, the various colors you can set the keys to, and the patterns you can employ in the way the keys are lit. My favorite, however, is the mode where you set it to use the key you have pressed to act as ground zero (if you will) for the light to radiate out from. I took a video of this mode, because words do not do it justice. My wife finds it very distracting to type this way, but I just think it looks amazing! I find an unintended benefit from it, as well, in that it helps me not look at my hands when I am really in the typing groove (which is what you are supposed to be doing anyway). I understand those that would find this too distracting while typing, so thankfully, there are plenty of other modes to choose from (I would love to demonstrate them, but I can't put up more than 1 video at a time here, and I just NEED for you to see this mode... need).

For background, I am a casual (occasional) gamer, nothing hardcore in terms of weekend gaming marathons or anything (I did that in a past life, but now I have kids). I have found the keyboard to be quite accurate for my needs, and the occasional FPS game (fallout, Icarus, etc.). At times, I have found it necessary to use one of the constantly lit modes if I am not actively typing a lot, (to find the keys in the dark) so I have preset a solid color, with no motion, as well as, a mode that resembles a swirling color pattern (or something swimming in circles, depending on your imagination). So, with the press of a button (p1 - p3) you can instantly select your preset mode.

To be honest, there are too many customizations for me list here, and it really does warrant a bit of time and effort to read up on the buttons, what they do, and how to set it up. It will work perfectly well out of the box, it's not like you have to program it, but if you want to customize the fancy features, you should do a little research in the manual. The macro keys would be particularly useful, if one has the time to set those up.

I appreciate the 5 extra keys and the special tool (a kind of tweezers) that were included with the keyboard, presumably in case of a failure, but mine has worked flawlessly so far. I am not a key smasher, but one does get carried away in the moment from time to time, that said, no keys have let me down to date. I also like the cord wrap, it feels very high quality and does a great job of keeping your extra cord from getting tangled in everything.

I am very pleased with this keyboard, and I enjoy the light shows it produces as well as the satisfying clicks emanating from the mechanical keys. I much prefer it to my laptop keyboard (which is lighted, but just seems boring when comparing the monochromatic light and the lack of movement/sound it produces). As a user, you really need to think about what is important to you. If you want a quiet, low profile keyboard, maybe this isn't for you. However, if you like to customize everything you own, like the sound of a classic mechanical keyboard when you're in the groove and it sounds like a machine gun rattling under your fingertips, have the need for more keys/macros than you can shake a stick at, prefer controls on the keyboard (volume roller, play, pause, forward, backward, mute, etc.), then this might just be your huckleberry.

So here I am, with this Redragon K550 RGB on my desk, deployed, plugged in (both cables) to my KVM, at 50 years old, and I just bought my first gaming keyboard. Up until...well, today some time, I had been especially favorable toward the Unicomp/IBM Model M keyboards - which these days cost over $100. (But hey, it's a pretty good keyboard!)

And then I started playing a MMORPG called Palia, and boy oh boy did that bug bite me hard or what.

Installation went mostly like any other keyboard, only this one has two USB ports. One is for the USB port on the back of the keyboard (the USB A connector says "PORT" on it). The keyboard does take a moment to figure out what it wants to do, but it will ultimately light up after a couple seconds.

Usage is utterly divine. The horiz knob off to the right acts as a volume controller and has graduated stops. ALL of the option keys on the very top - G keys, what looks like player profiles, etc - are fully responsive, even in Linux. The keys handle like a dream, they just don't click; not a killer for me, though, as I'm more for the texture than I am for the sound of me typing so fast it buzzes. Lighting effects are fun, and I've even settled on one. Only one button to control brightness, and it has four stages and an "off" stage, no need to go to software to control this if you don't feel like you want to. If this is any indication, I imagine the G keys will handle just like a dream.

Overall, the keyboard is similar in feel to the Model M. It's not the same by any stretch. Biggest difference *other* than appearance between the two is that the part where it otherwise clicks is a bit softer, and overall the keyboard itself is quieter due to the lack of click - but I can live with that, and I really wish I could give more than five stars, because this thing deserves ELEVEN stars.

This is by far the best mechanical keyboard with many macro keys that I have come across since I got my original Gateway 2000 Anykey keyboard with my Gateway 2000 computer back in 1994. I've tried a number of keyboards since, but this one is the first to have all the features of the Anykey, plus more, all at a very reasonable price. Yes, older versions of the Corsair K95 had 18 macro keys to the Redragon Yama's 12 (the Anykey also has 12), but for $200, the old Corsair K95 just didn't really provide significant additional value. Neither did the various Logitech keyboards of years past that provided large numbers of macro keys. And today, it seems to be impossible to find a keyboard with at least 12 macro keys that is sold as new. Most keyboards, including the Corsair K95 and K100, have a maximum of 6 dedicated macro keys.

The K550 Yama is no longer listed on the main Redragon site, although you can still find it on their redragonzone.com site. For this reason, if you're considering buying this keyboard new, you might want to do so in the not too distant future.

The keyboard can be run strictly as a plug-and-play keyboard, with full macro key functionality available, available with a wide variety of 18 preprogrammed lighting schemes. Or you can download software designed specifically for the K550 Yama, which allow you to reprogram just about any key on the keyboard, either with a single key replacement or a custom macro - just like the Anykey. You can also create your own custom lighting schemes. The software comes with three custom profiles, so you can easily switch from one to the other depending on your needs at the time.

The biggest gripe that people have with this keyboard is that by default, when macros are recorded, the delay implicit in typing the macros is recorded with the macros themselves. This appears to be a rather bad design decision, but fortunately it's very easy to overcome via an undocumented feature. If you don't want any delays between keypresses when your G macro is replayed, simply hit the Rec button twice quickly (instead of once) when you start to record your macro. Normally, any time you hit the Rec button, it will toggle its state between lit and unlit. But if you hit it rapidly enough twice in succession (which isn't very hard), it will light up after the first hit and stay lit after the second. Any macro you record now will not have any delays.

The other problem people have is that they can't find the current software for the K550 Yama, as it isn't listed with the software for Redragon's other keyboards. As I mentioned earlier, the K550 Yama is no longer listed on the main Redragon site, and so you have to go to a different Redragon site to find the K550 Yama and its software. You can find everything you need at https://www.redragonzone.com/pages/download. There's an image of the K550 in the second column, third from the bottom. If you click on this image, you get a little popup window that contains a link to the actual software in the form of a zip file. Don't be discourage by the fact that the first two files in the zip file are in Chinese; the third file is the actual program, and it is entirely in English. It also appears to work fine.

Using the software, you can also save and restore your configurations.

All in all, this is a fantastic keyboard at a great price, and the availability of RGB lighting with essentially unlimited lighting schemes, plus a few extra dedicated keys for frequently used programs (email. browser, calculator, calculator, search, etc.), make this the best keyboard I have seen in 30 years, and the first to truly surpass the Anykey.

This is a nice keyboard and having a pre mounted wrist rest is nice. Though one issue I have is that when I'm typing, sometimes letters don't type out correctly and it auto backspaces and does my future typing into the last word I tried typing.

This keyboard helps you do so many things! From gaming to actual everyday work too! Highly recommend