Our Verdict
The ROCCAT Vulcan 120 AIMO is an excellent gaming keyboard. The new Titan switches offer great tactile feedback and are silent. The pre-travel distance is standard and the keys feel light. The board feels well-made and has a unique style, with low profile keycaps and full RGB lighting, which is great for playing in the dark.
- Well-built design.
- Unique look with low profile keys and transparent switch casings.
- Great typing experience.
- Not available in a wide variety of switches.
- Wrist rest is needed to have better typing experience.
The ROCCAT Vulcan 120 AIMO isn't designed to work with mobile devices.
The ROCCAT Vulcan 120 AIMO is a good office keyboard. The Titan switches offer good tactile feedback but aren't too loud so you won't annoy surrounding colleagues. Also, it comes with a good wrist rest, which is recommended to use, as the typing experience is noticeably worse without it.
- Well-built design.
- Unique look with low profile keys and transparent switch casings.
- Great typing experience.
- Not available in a wide variety of switches.
- Wrist rest is needed to have better typing experience.
The ROCCAT Vulcan 120 AIMO is a great option for programmers. Its overall typing experience is great and it also allows you to program macros. The RGB backlighting is nice and bright, and the build of the board is sturdy.
- Well-built design.
- Unique look with low profile keys and transparent switch casings.
- Great typing experience.
- Not available in a wide variety of switches.
- Wrist rest is needed to have better typing experience.
- Well-built design.
- Unique look with low profile keys and transparent switch casings.
- Great typing experience.
- Not available in a wide variety of switches.
- Wrist rest is needed to have better typing experience.
Changelog
- Updated Mar 31, 2021: Converted to Test Bench 1.0.
- Updated Nov 25, 2020: We mistakenly indicated that all keys are macro-programmable and that there's a maximum of 4 custom profiles. It has been fixed.
- Updated Feb 04, 2020: Review published.
- Updated Jan 28, 2020: Our testers have started testing this product.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
The ROCCAT Vulcan 120 AIMO has a few variants, but they're considered to be different products. The Vulcan 121 and Vulcan 122 are different colors and come either in Titan tactile switches or in Titan linear switches. There's also the Vulcan 100, which seems identical but doesn't have a wrist rest. Our review is only valid for the Vulcan 120 AIMO with the Titan tactile switches.
Popular Keyboard Comparisons
The ROCCAT Vulcan 120 AIMO is the first keyboard to have the newest ROCCAT Titan switches, which are comparable to MX Browns. This keyboard also has a unique style with low profile keycaps and a transparent switch casing, which makes the RGB lighting shine throughout the board. Unfortunately, while you can use the board without its wrist rest, the typing experience is way better with it, so it's almost mandatory to use it. For other options, check out our recommendations for the best gaming keyboards, the best mechanical keyboards, and the best RGB keyboards.
The ROCCAT Vulcan Pro is a bit better for gaming than the ROCCAT Vulcan 120 AIMO. Both keyboards are similarly built and have the same features, but the Pro has linear switches that are lighter to press. However, the AIMO has tactile switches that offer better feedback.
The ROCCAT Vulcan 120 AIMO and the ROCCAT Pyro are similar full-size gaming keyboards, but the Pyro has slightly lower latency. Otherwise, both boards have an Easy-Shift[+] function, which lets you set a second layer of commands to certain keys for as long as you hold it. Each also comes with a removable plastic wrist rest and one incline setting.
The Corsair K83 Wireless and the ROCCAT Vulcan 120 AIMO are both very good keyboards designed for different uses. The Corsair is a wireless scissor-switch keyboard with a built-in trackpad designed to use while sitting on your couch. Meanwhile, the ROCCAT is a wired gaming keyboard with mechanical switches meant to stay on a desk within a gaming setup. They both feel very well-made and have excellent backlighting, but the typing experience on the ROCCAT is a little bit better thanks to its mechanical switches. On the other hand, the Corsair has better compatibility with a wide range of operating systems.
The ROCCAT Vulcan 120 AIMO is much better than the Corsair K60 RGB PRO Low Profile. The ROCCAT has significantly better typing quality, as its proprietary switches provide tactile feedback, and their higher pre-travel distance result in fewer typos. However, all keys are macro-programmable on the Corsair, and iCUE is available for Windows and macOS.
The ROCCAT Vulcan 120 AIMO and the ROCCAT Vulcan TKL are very similar keyboards visually and performance-wise, but they have a few notable differences. The Vulcan 120 AIMO is a full-size keyboard with an included wrist rest and lower latency. On the other hand, the Vulcan TKL is a TenKeyLess keyboard with a detachable USB-C cable. Both keyboards have dedicated mute buttons and volume wheels and are available with either ROCCAT Titan tactile or linear switches.
Test Results
The ROCCAT Vulcan 120 AIMO is a fairly big keyboard due to its full-size design. It also comes with a magnetic wrist rest, which takes even more space on your desk. However, it's fairly lightweight for its size.
The ROCCAT Vulcan 120 AIMO's build quality is great, which is surprising as it's lightweight. The board doesn't have much flex to it and has a nice aluminum faceplate. The keys have a very low profile and have a unique look. However, the ABS keycaps aren't the greatest and feel a bit flimsy due to their thinness.
Ergonomics are good. It has an incline setting and comes with a detachable, magnetic wrist rest. However, the wrist rest seems necessary to use as, without it, typing feels a bit awkward due to the flat profile of the keys.
The ROCCAT Vulcan 120 AIMO has a full RGB backlight. You can easily control the brightness setting on the board itself and thanks to the transparent casing of the switches and the low profile keys, there's a lot of lighting bleeding on the board. The board is bright enough to use in daylight.
The cable is typical. It should be long enough for you to reach your desktop without any issues, but you can't detach it and easily replace it if it's damaged.
This keyboard is wired-only and can't be used wirelessly.
Update 11/25/2020: We previously indicated that all keys are macro-programmable, which is wrong. About half the keys can be reassigned to other functions like opening the control panel or profile switching, but they aren't macro-programmable. For macros, you can only set them to the 'M' keys (M1 through M6) while in Game Mode, or the alphanumerical keys left of 5, T, G, and B, using the Easy-Shift[+] feature.
The ROCCAT Vulcan 120 AIMO has a few neat extra features that can be very useful. While the media control keys like play/pause and back/forward are on hotkeys, you have dedicated keys for muting sound and a jog that can be used to control the volume, or the brightness level of the backlight if you press the 'FX' key before. You can also enable the Game Mode with a hotkey, which will disable your Windows key so that you don't accidentally minimize your games when playing.
This keyboard features ROCCAT proprietary Titan Tactile switches. These tactile yet silent switches are very similar to the popular Cherry MX Brown switches. It has a bump before its actuation force, but the keys don't need too much force. The keys actuate at a pretty standard distance. The Vulcan lineup is the first to feature these switches. If you want something that has linear switches, then check out the ROCCAT Vulcan Pro.
The ROCCAT Vulcan 120 AIMO's typing quality is great. It might feel a bit odd at first due to the very low profile keyboard and keycaps. The keys feel stable and are nice to type on, but the spacebar feels a bit high and slightly unstable. Typing feels much more comfortable when using the wrist rest too. The spacing of the keys helps to reduce the number of typos and it feels better than the Logitech G915.
The typing noise isn't too loud and is suitable for an open-office environment.
The ROCCAT Vulcan 120 AIMO has a great click latency. You shouldn't feel any lag while gaming. However, if you want a much lower latency, check out the EVGA Z15.
Update 11/25/2020: We mistakenly indicated that the maximum number of profiles is 4. You can save up to 5 custom profiles.
The ROCCAT Swarm software offers a good amount of customization for the Vulcan 120 AIMO. You can create up to four different profiles with different keybindings, lighting effects, macros, etc. Note that you need to activate the game mode to use custom binds and macros. This software also allows you to set a specific sound for each keypress. You can choose from preset options, or put in your own audio file to be played at each actuation, but you'll need to replace the preset sound files themselves.
If you want a keyboard that has software support for macOS, check out the Corsair K60 RGB PRO Low Profile.
While this keyboard is fully compatible with Windows, its software isn't available on macOS and Linux, which means you won't be able to customize it. However, most keys work and only the calculator hotkey doesn't work on Linux. For macOS, the scroll lock, browser, explorer, email, and calculator keys don't work.