ASUS ROG Strix Flare II Animate Review

Up Close

Like all ROG packaging the Strix Flair II Animate combines the familiar black and red packaging with a clear product image and the back full of all the features you're going to get from your outlay. Is the name a play on Flair To Animate? It still feels like it should be the Animated. But maybe that's just us.

Within the packaging you get a ROG branded cover. Not quite easy enough to use as a dust cover on the regular, but perhaps useful if you often take it places to show off your gaming/typing prowess.

When the Flare II is off the huge amount of real estate that the LED panel on the top right takes up makes the whole thing feel slightly unbalanced. The controls and volume wheel are on the left, cramped in with the Escape key and FKEYS. Once it's on the balance is better, but it almost feels like it's leaning to the left in shots like this.

Although it doesn't show up here, the finish leans slightly more towards blue than a pure grey too. It is very strange.

The quality of something is usually to be found in the parts you can't see. Attention to detail goes deep, but some companies stick strictly the surface stuff you'll notice. Not so here. Just look at it. Lovely.

The wrist rest, as well as helping save you from years of agony down the road, has a trick up its sleeve too. The keen eyed amongst you will have already spotted it at the top of this page, or perhaps the transluscent strip down the front of the keyboard itself gives it away. If you haven't seen it we'll highlight it on the next page.

Here's that super busy top left corner. Given how often our right hand is on the mouse this might actually be an easy way to keep on top of things without taking your crosshairs off your target.

Here is the part that so strongly echoes the Maximus motherboard range, and gives the Strix Flare II Animate its title. It doesn't look much when powered off, so let's move on to the next page.