Split keyboards have been a thing in the enthusiast space for years, but it's only recently that we've seen big name gaming brands take a stab at the idea. Case in point is the Asus ROG Falcata, an ergonomic mechanical keyboard that, when angled apart, forms a similarly curved design to the falcon-shaped Iberian sword it's named after. As well as offering a more comfortable posture for typing, the keyboard can also be used with the left half alone, making it a revival of the classic "gamepad" design: all the keys you need for FPS, and nothing more. Modern magnetic switches lie underneath each key, sound dampening ensures a lovely typing experience, and there's even low-latency 2.4GHz wireless, on top of Bluetooth and wired USB-C, providing a ton of extra flexibility.

Unfortunately, all that functionality comes at a cost. The Falcata is a wince-inducing £335 in the UK, and a similarly outrageous $420 in the US. Discounts to £300 or $350 soften the blow slightly, but we're still talking about a truly premium keyboard that needs to hit on all levels: great typing, performant gaming, significant ergonomic benefits, sensible software and impeccable design.

The ROG Falcata comes close to hitting that high-water mark, but I'm not quite sure it totally delivers. Still, it's a fascinating piece of kit to use, and does at least set a new standard for the nascent ergonomic gaming keyboard category.

Design and Features

The ROG Falcata is a 75% size keyboard of two halves, which are joined together by a short (or slightly longer) USB-C to USB-C cable. Each half has a long integrated palm rest, nearly the size of the keyboard itself, giving the whole assembly a vaguely square aspect ratio, though these are removable if you don't need or want them.

The 75% design is fairly ordinary, with Function row keys along the top, arrow keys in the lower right and a volume wheel in the upper left, though the LED lighting strip along the left side of the board which shows your volume setting and keyboard brightness levels, amongst other metrics, is unique and genuinely useful. Tiny icons illuminate to show you what you're adjusting, and light races up or down the LED strip to signify your current level.

The split space bar also makes good sense here, allowing you to jump or create a gap with either hand, and there are even switches for connectivity and rapid trigger mode tucked behind the Escape key.

The one thing here I simply cannot abide is the Copilot key in the lower right. Its placement borders the arrow keys, and I find myself hitting it constantly when I don't mean to. It's meant to be possible to disable it in software, but for whatever reason this setting doesn't work, so the unwanted Copilot window regularly appears – much to my consternation.

The magnetic switches inside the keyboard allow for some interesting features versus standard mechanical switches, but feel very similar to traditional linear switches. Asus has included four layers of sound dampening here, meaning the tone of each key press is deeper and more pleasant, and the key action is also refined: moderately weighted (49g), relatively quiet and extremely smooth. The backlit PBT keycaps are easily readable in dark environments, and of course RGB can be disabled to save battery life or if you simply prefer the look of a single colour or nothing at all.

The Falcata can be used in wired or 2.4GHz wireless mode at up to 8000Hz, or in Bluetooth mode at up to 250Hz. Battery life is rated at up to 200 hours with 2.4GHz and RGB disabled, which is typical for this category, but expect 2000Hz, 4000Hz and 8000Hz polling rates to cut this longevity to days or mere hours.

Software

The Falcata is supported by Asus' web-based Gear Link software, which allows you to remap keys, change the lighting, set up FPS features like SOCD, and change other keyboard settings. The software is considerably more polished than Cherry Xtrfy's equivalent software I looked at over at Eurogamer recently, with polished English language text, an intuitive layout, and sensible default settings.

There are even some quite rare features here, including the smart ability to swap the left Windows key for a Function key if only the left side of the keyboard is being used, or enable an 8000Hz polling rate for frequently used keys only in so-called 'Zone mode'. It's easy to set the actuation point and dead zones of the keyboard on a per-key or entire board basis, thanks to live readouts of how far each key is being pressed – a bit like Logitech has done with the similar sensors inside its revolutionary X2 Superstrike mouse.

Similarly, rapid trigger is smartly suggested for the WASD movement keys by default, while the counter-strafing aid SOCD (called 'speed tap') is on A and D, another sane choice. At every turn, it's clear that Asus has invested the time in making sure its features are well explained with little tooltips and set up to be of immediate use – a surprising rarity in some keyboard software.

Performance

The ROG Falcata is noticeably rapid in fast-paced games, as you'd hope, and I appreciate the huge amount of extra mousing space that running with just the left half of the keyboard provides. Of course, it's a bit of an annoyance when you remember a critical key is on the right side of the board – such as 'y' for chatting in Counter-Strike – but even with both halves in use, the compact 75% design works well.

The Falcata includes magnetic switches, as is the vogue for FPS-focused gaming keyboards these days, and the rapid trigger, SOCD, and adjustable actuation points are all useful tools in your toolkit for speeding up your inputs. SOCD is particularly vital for counter-strafing in tactical FPS games, but it's worth bearing in mind that it's banned in Counter-Strike 2 and is of limited usefulness outside of the shooter genre. Finally, 8K polling shaves a few microseconds off your inputs, but does have a higher CPU impact than the default 1K polling, so I wouldn't suggest enabling it unless you have a beefy computer and a particular interest in eking out fine margins to attain victory.

The usability of the keyboard outside of gaming is also strong, with the left-mounted scroll wheel proving surprisingly useful for adjusting the volume without needing to lift your hand off your mouse. The more ergonomic positioning that the split design allows isn't too tricky to adjust to – I mainly needed to train myself to press the 'b' key with my left hand instead of my right – and there are screw-in lifts in the box to allow you to angle the keyboard as you see fit. A bit of 'tenting' – having the inside of the keyboard raised slightly – is meant to be a bit more comfortable for your wrists, and this is fully possible here, though you don't get the kind of fine-grained adjustability that the posable legs of an Ergodox EZ provides, for example.

With its integrated palm rest, I found the Falcata a bit too bulky to easily tuck into a bag, especially as you need to pack a cable to connect the two halves even if you're planning to use the Bluetooth or 2.4GHz wireless connectivity options. That makes for a slightly messy setup, though there is an included shorter cable if you want only a slight gap between the two boards (or to use them fully joined up). The magnetic switches here are comfortable and relatively quiet for typing, whether you're writing an article or coding a script, though the PBT keycaps are a little slick for my liking. Still, I can't complain about the overall feeling of the board, which is suitably premium.

Will is former deputy tech editor for IGN, specialising in PC hardware, sim racing and display tech. He has been publishing about games and technology since 2001 (age 12). Will was formerly Deputy Editor at Digital Foundry. He is currently playing BattleTech Advanced Universe.

The Herman Miller x Logitech Embody is the chair that supported me through lockdown in 2020, and almost six years later it still feels nearly brand-new. That's a rarity for the gaming chairs I've used in the past, which have all shown visible signs of wear – or even genuine functional misfortune – after similar timeframes. While the design has remained the same ever after, Herman Miller and partners Logitech have produced new colorways over the years, including an eye-catching navy/purple "Nova" combo plus the white/orange "Ignite" shade that recently arrived at my doorstep.

That makes it a great time to mull over exactly why the Embody has remained my go-to option, despite testing a half-dozen other great gaming chairs in as many years – many of which come with much longer feature lists, greater adjustability and more attractive price tags.

Design

The Embody Gaming Chair is a striking chair to look at, especially in some of the wilder colorways available. Each two-tone design highlights the almost skeletal structure at the back of the chair, with segmented soft and stretchy plastic supported by thin plastic ribs that gradually link up into larger assemblies and finally join onto the aluminum frame. Underneath the seat, a denser mesh of similar construction supports your weight.

Meanwhile, arms curve up from the base of the chair, again with a more organic shape compared to the default racing-style bucket seat used by most gaming chair manufacturers. This structure gives the Embody more flexibility than those other designs; as you change position naturally, the chair stretches, supports and realigns.

The front of the chair, aka the bit that will potentially appear in Zoom meetings, is much more anonymous. Black or white polyester fabric covers the back rest and seat, with an extremely subtle color-matched Logitech logo and a few textural ridges being the only design elements of note beyond the overall gently curving shape. The top of the arm rests are made of squidgy foam, and the five-star base holds double-wheel casters of a modest (2.5-inch) size.

All told, the seat measures 29 inches wide, 41 to 52 inches high and 38 to 46 inches deep, while the total height of the chair is 42 to 45 inches. With these dimensions and a maximum weight capacity of 300 pounds, the Embody Gaming Chair is robustly constructed and should suit even the big and/or tall, including my 6'2", 190 pound frame.

Assembly and Adjustability

I normally need to spend a lot of time detailing the assembly process in chair reviews, but thankfully I don't have to do that here. That's because the Embody is shipped fully constructed, so you simply open one face of the massive cardboard cube that arrives, and the chair rolls out, ready to go. You're left with a huge amount of cardboard to cut down into small enough pieces that it'll fit into your recycling situation, or you can leave it in place if you want a king-sized box for your kids/cats/enemies to chill in. Still, versus other chairs that come packed in all manner of non-recyclable foam, polystyrene or other assorted guff, the Embody is mercifully easy to clean up after. Not having to spend an hour (or three) on assembly is also a massive plus.

Once you've lugged the chair into position, you're free to set it up, which is again quite straightforward as the Embody's feature list isn't miles long. A pull control on the front right side controls the hydraulics, letting you raise or lower the chair, while a dial in the same spot controls the tension of reclining. On the back right, you can adjust the strength of the lumbar support, with the chair moving from being straight-backed to being more s-shaped. A paddle on the left locks or unlocks the recline mechanism, and handles on either side of the front of the seat let you extend the seat depth. Finally, the arm rests have small buttons hidden underneath; pushing them in allows the arms to be raised or lowered. You can also exert a little force to pull the arm rests out wide, or move them closer to your body.

It's all very straightforward stuff, and yet there's plenty here that is unique in its execution. The arms, for example, can drop so low that you can move fully underneath most desks; normally, I'd have to completely unbolt the arms and take them off to adopt my favored forearms-on-desk typing position. Likewise, moving the arms in makes me feel more cozy in cold weather, especially if I have a hoodie on, while pushing them wider gives me more room to wriggle in warmer weather. The backrest adjustments seem better suited than most in pushing me into an upright position that's actually comfortable for hours on end, and being able to extend the seat depth is brilliant for when I've got my foot up on the desk's cross-brace.

There's also plenty that's not here compared to most gaming chairs. The arm-rests aren't "4D", so they don't move forward or backwards or rotate side to side. The back of the seat ends at my shoulders, and there's no head rest. Similarly, there's no ability to recline at nearly 180 degrees.

I miss absolutely none of these features. In fact, I'm actively glad that they haven't been included, as their omission makes the Embody a shorter, more mobile chair that's easier to push from one room to another, or fit under a standing desk in its upright position. The lack of a neck rest means that you actually need to sit upright rather than doing a full-body slouch, and no deep recline means that you must lie down on a bed or something, all of which feel like they're much better for you. Indeed, I had fairly bad back pain off and on for years before getting the Embody, and it's been much rarer since.

Still, some of this will come down to personal preference. I know some people that love to rest their arms on their chairs, and the Embody doesn't offer much adjustability here. Likewise, if you are the sort of person that likes to tilt way back and stare at the ceiling while thinking, the Embody doesn't allow for it. That doesn't make it a bad chair by any means, but as with many peripherals, it's as much a case of individual need as it is of objective measurement of quality.

Comfort and Performance

The Embody, like other adjustable gaming or office chairs, will take some time to get dialed in. While height and arm rest position is likely something you'll set once and not touch too often again, adjusting the strength of the lumbar support and how the chair reclines may require some experimentation. There are no discrete notches to signify where in a given settings' adjustment you are, and changing one setting can impact another, so you may have to keep tweaking things for a period of days or weeks before you're truly happy.

Still, what you're actually changing is at least easy to understand, and most people that have tried the Embody – including my wife and friends that have stayed with us for a few days or weeks – ended up being quite happy with overall comfort levels after spending a day or two making adjustments.

Once set up, the Embody is a stalwart companion for both working and gaming. I try to mix standing and sitting when working, and having a chair that provides a good amount of lumbar support while also fitting easily under a standing desk makes things a lot easier. Similarly, having arms that drop down low enough to let me slide under a desk and put my face really close to the screen is ideal for Counter-Strike and other games that reward being able to spot changes to just a handful of pixels.

On days where I'm being naughty and not standing up at all, the Embody is supportive and comfortable enough that I can sit down for four hours, type up a bunch of reviews, and get up without feeling in pain. It's still obviously better to take breaks, stand up, go look at nature and so on, but for days where you need to lock in for whatever reason, the Embody has been excellent.

Best of all, that comfort has persisted. I'm now nearly half-way through the chair's 12-year warranty period, and my old chair looks and feels nearly identical to one delivered just a few weeks ago. (Having said that, I really do need to vacuum some of the fluff out of the back of the seat.) That experience gives me a unique opportunity to recommend a product based on real long-term use, rather than a necessarily brief initial testing period, and do so with a real measure of confidence.

Will is former deputy tech editor for IGN, specialising in PC hardware, sim racing and display tech. He has been publishing about games and technology since 2001 (age 12). Will was formerly Deputy Editor at Digital Foundry. He is currently playing BattleTech Advanced Universe.