Creative Sound BlasterX Vanguard K08 RGB Keyboard Review

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The Vanguard K08 is a very sturdy piece of kit. There is a nice heft to it with zero flex in the chassis. The included wrist rest is a nice touch to help you avoid RSIm and clips on and off easily enough. The keycaps have a lovely satin finish which provides a little grip if you’re typing in a sauna and otherwise helps reduce the marks that any well used keyboard obtain over time. To the left of the main keys are five dedicated macro offerings, more on those later, and at the top right we find a combination of lighting adjustment, dedicated media keys and a volume scroll wheel. It is very nice to find Creative utilising the wheel volume adjustment. It’s something we have, until now, only really seen on Corsair keyboards, but it is such a handy thing and lends an air of quality to the keyboard that we are surprised it’s not utilised on more of them. Kudos to Creative.

The Omron key switches utilise a square plunger which has a huge hole in the centre to help the lighting shine through your keycaps well. Adding this to the white background and you can be sure that the lighting will be the highlight (heh) of the Vanguard K08. There are two USB connectors on the heavily braided cable, but only one of them is necessary to run the keyboard itself, the other is for the USB pass through found just behind the F8 key.